- Two discs of elegant, understated house from the Brussels underground.
- In clubs that host marathon parties, there's a funny moment on the dance floor when the fresh-faced arrive for a morning boogie. If you find yourself playing this slot—needing something that sounds just as good coming down as up—I'd recommend reaching for "Great Lakes Empty Branches" on the debut EP from Brussels-via-Chicago producer Dana Kuehr. It's an intricately detailed house track where the chords yawn behind an arpeggio that spouts off over a wiggly bassline and loose electro drum programming. The rest of Basic Moves 18 works with a similarly lethargic and funky pacing, falling somewhere between the crossword puzzles of a lazy Sunday morning and Club-Mate bottles at the afters.
This sweet spot makes sense given Kuehr's background. She's a staple of the morning slot on Brussels' Kiosk radio, and she brings that early dawn magic to this record. On EP highlight "Almagest Slide," for example, she takes a dubby bassline and a toothy breakbeat, but lets the light in with bursting chords and instrumentation that reminds me of another Brussels legend, Joel Vandroogenbroeck. She reaches a high point on the vocal track "BECAUSE," where her synths twirl into increasingly euphoric crescendos. There's still some late-night fare on the EP for the final stragglers. "Cloud B," in particular, packs a punch with claustrophobic melodies and the kind of bassline you'd hear on a record from Montevideo.
Kuehr's EP is a perfect addition to the formidable Basic Moves catalog, returning the label to its original mandate. When Michael Claus (AKA DJ Walrus) started Basic Moves half a decade ago, he seemed like a man hellbent on rewriting the history of Belgian dance music outside of new beat and hyper-charged techno. Since those early days, the label's purview has expanded with recent releases going global thanks to slicker-than-slick house from Bogotá and a standout double pack from Montevideo's Z@P under his Signal Kommt alias. But Basic Moves 18 is a return to form—two discs of elegant, understated house from the Brussels underground.
TracklistA1 How Do We Continue
A2 Almagest Slide
B1 Cloud B
C1 Great Lakes Empty Branches
C2 Realm 8
D1 Because