- Dolly's brand of house music has so far been uncompromisingly candid. Releases by Jacob Korn and Dexter were striking for a lack of frills and funky forthrightness. Compared to Brooks Mosher's latest instalment, though, they seem like shiny memories of tinsel and glitter. The American producer skirts a fine line between techno, house and acid over the course of four tracks with a common rough edge distinguishing the lot. A deliberate attempt to capture the coarseness of mastering circa 1993, the overall sound is cogent and ear-catching, but also at times overcrowded.
The sonic stampede is at its most crushing on "Jupiter Attack," where throngs of percussion scuttle erratically over one another as two lines wrestle in a battle of the lower frequencies. There's too much going on at once for there to be any hook, melodic or percussive, to latch on to fully. In contrast, "Inter Metro" is built upon a slimmer frame of more traceable elements, and consequently invites an easier engagement with the plucky bass-chord-hi-hat exchange.
Mosher's best work is featured on the b-side. Metronomic hats keep the regimental "Mass Transit" in stomping time with the wax and wane of its bassline as a skittish sequence provides background buoyancy. It has a welcome straightforwardness, which is seemingly becoming some kind of Dolly prerequisite. "CIP" is more soothing than square-shooting—a chord fest of the Gherkin variety—fitting aptly, for better or worse, to the current retro vogue.
Tracklist A1 Intermetro
A2 Jupiter Attack
B1 Mass Transit
B2 Cip