- Versatile low-end business on label-of-the-moment TraTraTrax, with a heavyweight crew of remixers.
- While the rest of the world is currently lapping up the tribal techno sound coming out of Latin America (and Miami), Brazilian-American Andre Lira has been doing the opposite for over a decade. The influence he wears most visibly on his sleeve is the UK, whose countless strains of hardcore and bass music color all his music in various shades. Still, most of those half-time, jungle or drum & bass tracks also bear traces of the sounds he'd hear as a child spending holidays in Recife, from bossa nova to baile funk. As those two worlds collide more and more, it's a timely state of affairs for Doctor Jeep, who now releases a stellar solo EP on label-of-the-moment TraTraTrax.
The record opens with a twist. You'd expect a moody stepper from the title track's dive-bombing basslines, but the drop reveals a surprisingly functional 4/4 roller. It's silly, it's playful and it's bound to jolt any dancefloor it's thrown at—dance music that hits all the right pleasure centers. Things slow down on "Reso Danz," conjuring a zoologically baffling landscape where elephants trumpet, owls hoot and waves crash, all over a 92 BPM dembow lunge that sounds like DJ Python on the verge of a bad trip.
Hodge doubles down on those feral vibes in his remix—it reminds me of Yak's early work—before the he introduces some crucial melody. His rework is the most memorable of the EP, this record's "Xtasis" moment, if you will, though Aquarian's technicolour touch is not to be overlooked. The Berlin producer assaults the title track with a flurry of breaks and some Kill Bill-style sirens, with a firm grip over the chaos. Still, Sam Binga's contribution might just be my favorite, if only for the way it rouses like a feisty, amphetamine-fueled update of this groovy Suburban Knight classic. While the original "Rolla Dex" is a tense, stumbling roller that could go on forever, his "Turbo Mix" ramps up the BPM and lets the kicks pound, squeezing the original's ominous low-end into a bloodcurdling essence.
In an interview from last year, Lira said "[his] thing is being a generalist instead of a specialist," which he proves across his three excellent original tracks. Maybe nothing is as exemplary of his approach as the "push the body" sample from the title track. Lira blends the classic baile funk vocal to his will with a vocoder, before Aquarian mangles it into an insectoid-sounding swarm. Both are artists gradually carving their own sounds, styles that take in a multitude of influences but never stick too closely to an established genre. In that same exchange, Lira mentions how much harder it is to have a career in this generalist lane. Push The Body shows that taking the long way was worth it.
Tracklist01. Push The Body
02. Rolla Dex
03. Reso Danz
04. Reso Danz (Hodge Remix)
05. Push The Body (Aquarian Remix)
06. Rolla Dex (Sam Binga's Turbo Mix)