- Peach refines her emotional and exuberant take on tech house.
- Both tracks on the A-side of Serena Passion's newest EP, Fortune Two, could be called "Peach-core tech house." If you're a Peach fan, you'll know exactly what I mean. The drums are swung, with occasional bursts of hand percussion, as the melodies dart between the silly and the sensitive, plaintive pads mixed in with squiggly synths and 303 squelches. She's been refining this sound since 2018's lowkey anthem, "Silky": vintage UK tech house, but brighter and more energetic, like reimagining the famous Wiggle nights as contemporary queer afterhours parties.
"The Art of Casting Spells" and "Flutter" are the party starters. Of the two, "The Art of Casting Spells," with its weighty bassline, is the real moneymaker. The bass is chunky and weighty (particularly in the final third), but it's also as slippery as a recently-fed boa constrictor slithering back up a tree. Passion slows things down and adds a sepia filter on the flip with "Gay Dreams," whose call-and-response between daybreak chords and a watery arpeggio give it a vintage IDM feel.
Listening to the record, I was reminded of Call Super describing Passion's DJing in Mixmag: "It's spontaneous, it's honest, it's humble, balanced between things for the head and the feet, it’s exuberant... and all of that is what fills the spaces she graces." All three tracks are packed with energy, but they are also introspective and considered—the yin and yang between "the head and the feet" that Passion has perfected.
Tracklist01. The Art Of Casting Spells
02. Flutter
03. Gay Dreams