- It took Catz 'N Dogz's winsome Bibio edit to make me realize how much sweetness they were capable of; blame the cartoonish name for making me think they were all sampled guffaws and Dirtybird booty grooves. Their Pets Recordings label has so far shown a neat balance between slightly carnivalesque house and deeper, duskier shades. Now, with the debut single from Chmara Winter (fellow Poles Bartłomiej Chmara and Krzysztof Winter), the label reaches a new level of lyricism. A one-chord pump suffices to sketch a traditional deep house groove; bursts of sampled vocals fill in the picture, like Akufen in slow motion. There's a touch of post-minimal funny business in the clunky drums, but it's all smoothed out by brooding synthesizer bass and wistful vocals, just processed enough to give them bite.
Marcin Czubala takes his remix in a different direction, pasting a scrap of the vocal over a late night, minor key groove, linear and a little anxious. Lee Jones, though, provides the record's highlight. He twists the spirit of the original into something more optimistic, cutting the vocals into new refrains and writing new changes. You won't hear many other songs move like this one does: the chord progression pivots in places you wouldn't expect. I counted a 17-bar phrase, but it's hard to be too mathematical when confronted with such a bewitching bass melody and such soothing vocals. Between this and songs like and Mario & Vidis' "Changed," it's turning out to be a great year for deep house ballads.
Tracklist01. Powidlo
02. Powidlo (Lee Jones Remix)
03. Powidlo (Marcin Czubala Remix)