The third release on his own Wild Oats label, Dirty Thouz sees Kyle Hall filtering the soulful house vibe embodied by his Detroit predecessors through his own ramshackle, homemade production aesthetic, dousing it with electro, hip-hop and synth-funk flourishes. If you think about it, low-fi deep house seems like a fairly winning concept: As his RA profile details, Kyle has set up shop in the basement at dad's place, and what's literally more "deep house" than a basement?
If Kyle pulls a lot of his vibe from his housey forefathers, he still keeps a hip-hop spirit, as can be detected in the release title, faux-mixtape graphics and track titles like "I'm Kyle MF'n Hall Girl!"—whose bravado makes it seems like the Detroit deep house equivalent of "I'm Rick James, Bitch!" Considering the amount of hype that's made its way to Hall's door in the past year, such bravado is not out of place, and Dirty Thouz shows he's got the chops to back it up. Across five tracks Hall pushes the boundary between stoned-out house and fractured hip-hop, incorporating downtempo grooves reminiscent of Dam Funk and Dilla into his house palette. Half the time there's nary a dance rhythm in sight, instead whirring, shuffling, inebriated beat-juggling. "I'm Kyle MF'N Hall Girl!" and "B-eatN Griz!" take a deep house frame and replace the 4/4 pound with a laid back shuffe. The melody lines offer proof that Hall's a natural on the synth squiggle, invoking key-tinklers like Bernie Worrell and Herbie Hancock.
"Lax Adrenalin," a collaboration with Quran, most resembles a wig-split Dilla instrumental, its groove dense and splintered goofily brilliant, a gauzy, wobbly mess of flits, burbles, warbles and squeaks. It sounds like the end of an all-night jam sesh, the part where, after much sonic toil, you find the perfect groove and leave the sequencers running while you go upstairs for chips and dip. The one banger here, "Dunk Jiggla," disposes with melody altogether, focusing on an uptempo groove where drum machines pogo in temporary tandem, only to suddenly smack into each other, like wayward billiard balls. Or butt cheeks, maybe: the "dunk" being, in Hall's words, a reference to a Soulja Boy booty-clap anthem. Closer "Luv 4 KMFH" jacks a faster, '80s electro boom-bap and laces it with distant, shoegazey pads and more spiralling organ noodles. It epitomes the casual charm of Hall's productions—it doesn't sound like it took more than a night in the basement to lay down, but brims with style and natural talent.
If Kyle pulls a lot of his vibe from his housey forefathers, he still keeps a hip-hop spirit, as can be detected in the release title, faux-mixtape graphics and track titles like "I'm Kyle MF'n Hall Girl!"—whose bravado makes it seems like the Detroit deep house equivalent of "I'm Rick James, Bitch!" Considering the amount of hype that's made its way to Hall's door in the past year, such bravado is not out of place, and Dirty Thouz shows he's got the chops to back it up. Across five tracks Hall pushes the boundary between stoned-out house and fractured hip-hop, incorporating downtempo grooves reminiscent of Dam Funk and Dilla into his house palette. Half the time there's nary a dance rhythm in sight, instead whirring, shuffling, inebriated beat-juggling. "I'm Kyle MF'N Hall Girl!" and "B-eatN Griz!" take a deep house frame and replace the 4/4 pound with a laid back shuffe. The melody lines offer proof that Hall's a natural on the synth squiggle, invoking key-tinklers like Bernie Worrell and Herbie Hancock.
"Lax Adrenalin," a collaboration with Quran, most resembles a wig-split Dilla instrumental, its groove dense and splintered goofily brilliant, a gauzy, wobbly mess of flits, burbles, warbles and squeaks. It sounds like the end of an all-night jam sesh, the part where, after much sonic toil, you find the perfect groove and leave the sequencers running while you go upstairs for chips and dip. The one banger here, "Dunk Jiggla," disposes with melody altogether, focusing on an uptempo groove where drum machines pogo in temporary tandem, only to suddenly smack into each other, like wayward billiard balls. Or butt cheeks, maybe: the "dunk" being, in Hall's words, a reference to a Soulja Boy booty-clap anthem. Closer "Luv 4 KMFH" jacks a faster, '80s electro boom-bap and laces it with distant, shoegazey pads and more spiralling organ noodles. It epitomes the casual charm of Hall's productions—it doesn't sound like it took more than a night in the basement to lay down, but brims with style and natural talent.
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Published /
Thu / 17 Dec 2009 -
Words /
William Rauscher -
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Tracklist /
A1 I'm KMFH GIRL!
A2 Dunk Jiggla
A3 B Eatn Gritz
B1 Luv 4 KMFH
B2 Lax Adrenalin
All
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