Layo and Bushwacka's "Summer Gone" gleams at the start, exuding the kind of clarion confidence and convincing nonchalance that comes from a duo having made tech house of a more or less serviceable kind for more than a decade. It's impressive and professional, to be sure, but also a little oppressively so. The beat twitches and floats in a familiar house mode, and a handful of little accents decorate it until a weird breakdown about halfway through, just when you start to zone out and think "Does this 10-minute track have anything else to say?" The answer, surprisingly after the fine but bland start, is very much yes. The message is not always compelling or clear (throwing in a sitar, apropos of nothing, is rarely a good idea), but "Summer Gone" makes good on its length by wandering around, notably nicely through a spell of thumb-piano phasing.
"What Do You Say" is much darker and, at least ostensibly, dangerous. Vocal statements spew out and get draped in too much echo to make out even a feeling, and a notable absence of anything else happening at all raises the level of expectancy until a drastic, martial snare pattern slams itself against the dreary quietude. It's dramatic, but so much more so than the rest of the track that the discrepancy is hard to weather as the hide-and-seek game starts again.
Buy Layo & Bushwacka! - Summer Gone at
  
Tracklist: Layo & Bushwacka! - Summer Gone
 A Summer Gone
B What Do You Say Now?
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