Motorcitysoul feat. Ovasoul 7 - Change You

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  • Maybe it's because my listening-for-work habits have been commandeered by minimal over the past few years, but anyone brash enough to go the deep house route—Rhodes vamps! Pop vocals!—in the current climate is going to grab my attention, not least because this stuff functions as color when dropped among minimal's greyscale climes. One of the first times I heard this, I flashed on Blaze's "Lovelee Dae" as precursor and I'm not alone—English dubstep producer Appleblim also made this parallel in his DJ feedback. That's because Motorcitysoul understand how to tailor a traditional song structure while maintaining track-head utility, so the production is streamlined without being ascetic. Much like Blaze's classic, "Change You" describes both a structural and emotional arc, and its genre signifiers work—crescendo, breakdown and the extended tease of the intro are all potent because they're delivered so flawlessly. Some of this is also down to Ovasoul 7's vocals, which stay just the right side of creamy or overly performative, avoiding the cornball melismas that clutter many deep house songs while still accessing the emotional "overflow" distinctive of the genre. Truth be known, he's a bit like Robert Owens with less kilometers registering on the dial. On the flip, Shur-I-Kan loops Ovasoul 7's devotional sighs so they become obsessive-compulsive tics, spinning them out across a rhythm with a skip in its step, while gorgeous flecks of texture-melody wind around your ears. There's a particularly lovely section about six minutes in where Shur-I-Kan's mix peaks, and you're left with a beautifully languid, relatively empty coda, a sweet aftertaste. It's lovely, though the original's the strongest of the pair.
  • Tracklist
      A Change You B Change You (Shur-I-Khan Mix)
RA