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  • You'd be forgiven for thinking we'd heard the last of Matthew Herbert's house-focused Herbert guise: it's been eight years since the latest new material, and last year he released a retrospective compilation, the 130-track Complete. But no, here he is with an EP that's a completely natural-sounding follow-up to the playful, bumping Parts 1-5 series, released way back in '95 and '96. Opener "One Two Three" is a wonderful piece of straightforward summer house, all tropical percussion, warming keys and a cooing guest vocal from Rahel, of the London band Hejira, whose 2013 debut album Herbert produced. The rest of the package goes darker, to varying degrees, with "Manny" leavening its stark spine with vocal shards that repeatedly shift from punchy to heavenly. On the flip, "My DJ" hits on roughly similar terrain, its repetitious mechanical squelches, heavily filtered female vocal snippets and apocalyptic bass making for an irresistible earworm of a club track. "Grab That Bottle," meanwhile, is more serrated still, its whiplash keys lighting up an almost militaristic landscape of bass, hats, cymbals and simple techno synths. A release without a serious flaw to speak of, Part 6 makes you glad this most creatively ambitious of artists is still happy to go back to basics.
  • Tracklist
      A1 One Two Three A2 Manny B1 My DJ B2 Grab The Bottle
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