- Ukraine's Vakula, a familiar name from his records on labels like Uzuri and Quintessentials, turns up on Andre Lodemann and Daniel Best's Best Works label with more of the determinedly deep house that's become his calling card. "Ring of Night" is model of balance and restraint, with flickering hi-hats and muted vibraphones establishing a blissful ambient vibe; terse drum programming and a distant disco chorus strengthen the groove, and supplemental keys and guitars add color. A housier Jazzanova comes to mind, particularly in the tune's jazzy climax. The interplay between fretless bass and Rhodes chords is particularly inspired, their pulses and switchbacks blurring over rigid four-bar boundaries and creating a sense of gentle liquid motion.
Andre Lodemann's remix is plenty restrained itself, preserving most of the original's signature elements while bumping up the tempo and increasing the snap factor; an unexpected chord change in the bridge has almost prismatic qualities, as though a subtle change in angle had unleashed hidden properties in the harmonic spectrum.
"I Forget" could have been a great track: it's a dense, dizzy jam full of swirling organs, gently upbeat drum machines and terse, off-kilter bass stabs—a cleaner, less esoteric version of what Pepe Bradock does, maybe. But Bradock knows better than to cheapen his tracks with superfluous voiceovers like the one here, dutifully intoning, "True house music consists of four main ingredients: a cup of spirituality, a tablespoon of love, a dash of togetherness, and a pinch of soul-penetrating beats. This is true house music."
That the sample in question comes from a pretty cheesy Swiss record from 1999 might raise an eyebrow or two, but it's not the provenance that's the problem: it's the breathless, wide-eyed reverence attached to signifiers so rote that they're rendered almost kitsch. (You can almost imagine the Freedom Rock-styled late night infomercial: "Hey man, is that true house music?") This kind of rootsy recitation is all over the place these days, and if I come down hard on Vakula, it's because he's better than that.
Fortunately, Juju & Jordash have jettisoned the offending sample in their remix. As is so often the case with their music, they seem to be running in different directions at once: the core of the remix is a bulked-up version of the original's wonky bassline and drum clatter, and on top of that they layer keys with astral-jazz leanings—big, bright pads and meandering counterpoints. Beyond that, there are aching drones suggestive of dark ambient or even doom metal, and weird, guttural voices to match. It's a fine addition to J&J's growing catalog of mutant fusion.
Tracklist A1 Ring Of Night
A2 Ring Of Night (Andre Lodemann Remix)
B1 I Forget
B2 I Forget (Juju & Jordash Vakula/ Drakula Remix)