Soul Sway - Don't Step Down EP/Motions EP

Finally for tonight, we have not one but two EPs from Soul Sway, coming from not one but two of this blog's favourite labels.

First up, there's the Don't Step Down EP on Savoir Faire Musique. Or rather, the Jesus Pablo mixes thereof – the original, you may recall, was Savoir Faire's first release, a little over a year ago. In the Liverpudlian producer's hands, Don't Step Down itself sounds like a long-lost early 90s deep garage cut (making it my pick), Round 2 gets stripped down beyond belief and ends up as a bass-and-hand percussion workout underpinned by some warm piano chords – one for da heads for sure! – while there are more garage-y vibes on Think, this time with more tinkling ivories and some pleasing analogue synth stabs.

Then, there's the Motions EP on Deep Edition Recordings. Motions itself is a deep, langorous groove that doesn't go anywhere much but does sound very nice while it's (not) getting there. Have Faith is another fairly minimal groove, albeit at a just-slightly pacier tempo, and with the merest of vocal stabs to lend it a little soulful flava. And then finally Back To The Future is a Latin-influenced piano-and-percussion workout, complete with a slightly beefier Lee Pennington Remix.

Interesting to note that Deep Edition have gone for the more experimental, current-sounding trax while Savoir Faire's EP features Soul Sway's more classic-sounding, garage-y grooves… but then if you've been paying attention that's exactly what you'd expect really! Me being me I think Don't Step Down just edges it personally but both EPs are very strong.

Out: The Don't Step Down EP is out this week; the Motions EP is out this week on Traxsource, with a full release elsewhere on 12 March.

About: The label links are in the review this time. But I suppose this would be a good time to tell you that Soul Sway is a US producer from Washington DC, seeing as I hadn't. Here's his Soundcloud and Facebook pages.