Sleazy Beats’ sublabel Black Ops follows its luscious Rebound Round EP by Ben La Desh with an equally charming 12”. Max Graef and Andy Hart team up for a dusty EP of sample-heavy, feel-good deep house.
‘Biting’ is the real treat here. Despite on the surface displaying all the ingredients of a hackneyed deep houser – a wailing soul sample, elongated spoken word rants and a gently bobbing 4×4 rhythm – it all fits together so neatly, so affably, it comes off as fresh and utterly seductive. With its leisurely tempo, ambling bassline and mellow percussive clacks, to call it laidback would be an understatement.
The other two cuts aren’t as immediately winsome, but they’re rich productions nonetheless: ‘Pass The Mortek’ pushes a driving organ groove bolstered by some bongo drumwork; and the eponymous ‘Heavy Setters’ departs from the purely organic feel of ‘Biting’ and ‘Mortek’, injecting some squiggly retro-future laser-synths between the chugging beats.
As with all of Sleazy Beats’ output, despite an abundance of samples and motifs, nothing is brash, nothing threatens to spill over into the overcooked. Equally, there’s enough organic funk to inject some serious groove.
Sleazy Beats Black Ops | July | Format: vinyl
