Portable - The Emerald Life

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  • There's a great scene in HBO's The Wire that details the wide variety—grammatical and contextual—of the F-word, but I'd like to propose that the phrase "OK Then" works just as well. For instance, I used the two words more times than you can imagine when listening to Portable's track of the same name. Suspicion: When the producer opens up the track with a sample from a porn movie ala Kool Keith. Tedium: When I realize that we possibly have more than ten minutes of this to wade through. Building interest: When a yawning string starts to move underneath the proceedings, and is joined quickly by deep house synths and a vocal stab. Incredulity: When various melodic filigree is added on top of all of this increasingly unstable beast and only serves to heighten the tension rather than topple it. Admiration: When the track ends and you realize that the deep house revival actually can say something new. You almost want to blurt the same with "The Shallow Final" to its credit. Here, Portable goes the vocal route, reminding us how easy it is to be ignorant and how easy it is to adjust to the flow. The implication, of course, being that "The Shallow Final" is anything but. And, judging by how that simplistic house beat is joined up by a traditional tribal fragment and skittering synths, I'm on board with the sentiment. A late 12-inch of the year contender? OK then.
  • Tracklist
      A OK Then B The Shallow Final
RA