- Pete Heller has been putting out classics-informed house jams under various guises and alongside various producers since back in 1990, but enjoyed something of a reinvention around the turn of the millennium thanks to his quite frankly bonkers Sputnik release under the name Stylus Trouble. Various follow-ups and remixes surfaced for Junior London and Heller's own Phela Recordings, keeping up a certain amount of momentum for the Brighton-born producer during the mid-'00s, but without ever quite attaining anything like Sputnik's singular spirit. And while this first release for Ben Watt's Buzzin Fly imprint proffers nothing quite as radical as that white-noise guided aural assault, it does serve as a gentle reminder as to what the veteran producer has tucked away in his locker.
"Overtime" in many ways sees Heller return to tie up '90s threads; albeit with a couple of contemporary production flourishes to bring the template into the next century. In its original form, the track is a warm-weather inclined creeper that plays with a carnival horn, gently fucked-with vocals and a perpetually modulated synth chord. As Heller reveals in one of the cut's many (brief) troughs, the bassline is engineered to evoke movement, and works earnestly away while the upper frequencies adopt a far breezier pose with shades on. The dub, meanwhile, avoids simply sheering the original of its vocal and instead makes heavy use of a low-pass filter, teasing the kick drum proper for a good three-and-half minutes before once again retreating back into the bunker.
Tracklist A Overtime
B Overtime (Dub)