- Here's a bit of a strange one. Apparently Spain's Dubbyman heard the two-minute-and-change song sketch that was "All These Good Feelings" from Oakland duo The Lady Blacktronika & Mattski and knew he had something. The track is little more than ambient noise of a city street, four organ notes and Blacktronika singing, but you can tell where he's coming from: Mattski somehow turns it into enough to keep you engaged, and Blacktronika is passionate but reserved at the same time. After that, though, things get scrubbed up when Dubbyman and his brother, Above Smoke, come in with the clean organs and beatdown house on the remix. It's nice, but it loses something in the sound upgrade.
I'm wholly conscious that I may be underrating Dubbyman's effort, though, because on the flip is one of my favorite hypnotic burners of the current year: "If Some Rain"'s beat is nothing—a simple, lightly syncopated plod—but the static radio vocals of Blacktronika looping the title and "yeah" and the equally dreamy and unstable sampled atmosphere are exquisite. (The subtle, sizzling percussion that finds its way into the stereo field helps plenty.) It holds you captive for its seven-minute length. So much so that you can almost forget what comes before. "You're on the DL" is classic slo-mo house, another beatdown cut but one that has the sort of rawness that will fit neatly into a Moodymann set.
Tracklist A1 All These Good Feelings
A2 All These Good Feelings (Dubbyman & Above Smoke Remix)
B1 You're On The DL
B2 If Some Rain