- For all the house tracks that enlist the sounds of piano in the service of musicality and soul, how many of them transpire in a way that treats the sounds of piano as more than just a canned sample? How many tracks sound like the result of an actual piano actually having been played for the occasion? Reggie Dokes's "Haiti" does, to the point of summoning dreamy visions of foot pedals going up and down and measures of finesse being found by fingers in search of something to communicate. It follows in a privileged lineage that way, evoking nothing less than the piano breakdown in Derrick May's "Strings of Life." But the way it drapes over its sometimes sauntering, sometimes clacking beat makes the whole production sound effortless too—the kind of house track that sounds deceptively simple but sneaks up on you as its details of craft begin to reveal themselves.
This whole EP works like that, warm and patient and poised and uninterested in making a big flashy show of itself. There's more great piano, plus some gorgeously melodic synths, in "God of House," and "Once Again (Factory Remix)" bumps up to a sort of percolator pace, making it a useful weapon in the noble fight of nudging an otherwise flat-lined set into its next phase.
Tracklist A1 Haiti
A2 God Of House
B1 Once Again (Morning Factory Remix)