Five tracks and a total of eight mixes here from rising UK talent J Fader, who hails from Portsmouth – not generally known as a hotbed of house talent – and who's had stuff out before on Clean House and Slick Music (it says here).
For our purposes today though, we're gonna have to treat Mr Fader (I very much doubt that's his real name, don't you?) as an unknown newcomer… which makes the quality of the music contained herein all the more pleasing. Cast your mind back to a time around 1995 or so, when UK garage was just on the brink of emerging but hadn't quite yet fully distinguished itself from US house – think early productions by Booker T as Underground Mass, Grant Nelson, Fran & Ricky in various guises, Gavin M in his 'DJ Face' days, etc – then you're somewhere in the right ballpark as regards the overall vibe here.
Not going to go into individual tracks one-by-one cos there's too many of them, but the EP as a whole is long on crisp, skippy beats, live-sounding basslines, warm pads, jazzy minor-key piano licks, yada yada yada… you get the idea. If you remember the days when UK garage had more in common with the deep house scene, long before loads of hip-hoppers came in and spoiled it… well, you're gonna love this. Class in a glass… of Moet, natch.
Out: This week
About: This comes atcha on Beats Me Music, who are based in the equally unlikely location of Eastbourne, and from whom this is the fourth release. Hmmm..... is there some kind of south coast 'proper house' revival going on that I don't know about, or something? That may merit some further investigation… so here's their website.
