- One of New York's most trusted purveyors of analog brews, Jorge Velez, AKA Professor Genius, uses his new single to break ground on his own new NY-centric label, one designed with a modest but intriguing agenda: 7-inches only. If this might seem at first like an unusual undertaking, this single quickly makes clear that oddly enough, the format of the 7-inch, one of the oldest incarnations of waxen tunes, has become timely again in 2010, in an era when we're both culturally over-stimulated and excited by retro or neo-classic projects. The 7-inch offers up old-time vibes but condensed into a smaller, more immediately-digestible package, perfect for a 21st-century attention span. We're busy, we're distracted, if you've got something to offer, give it to us straight, hit us right between the eyes.
Which A-side "Sweet Machine" happily does, smacking you right in the ears with a blast of bouncy Italo driven by nice steely-slick hi-hats and roughshod bass. It practically begins in media res: with this format you get about three-and-a-half to four minutes per side, so extended intros and outros are out of the question. "Sweet Machine" runs out of the gate as if its opening build-up has been rudely lopped off, and then disappears without so much as a handshake goodbye. The tune's got enough steam that it could easily go on longer—play this out and you might find yourself wanting doubles, something almost unthinkable when it comes to extended 12-inches or loop-able mp3s.
Compared to its breezy, uptempo counterpart, "Lord of Flies" feels dense and a bit disorienting, as if its own solution to 7-inches wasn't to strip down but to bulk up, cramming twice as much sound into half the space—much like when you have to smush all your travel souvenirs back in the suitcase before heading home. Despite its heft "Lord of Flies" still soars, in part thanks to a thoughtful mix job which heavily stereo-pans a set of spooky choir voices while some sort of basement machine rumbles deeply in the middle, so murky it sounds like it's coming from next door. Bonky Hi-NRG synths do most of the grunt work, darting and stabbing across one another. And just when you feel you've made sense of the tune it's gone, like a weird dream—perhaps unsurprising coming from an artist named for a Little Nemo character.
TracklistA Sweet Machine
B Lord of Flies