You start thinking about Deep House and a few names come to mind – Larry, Ron & Chez, Kerri, Pepe. The legends, the greats, the comebacks and the never-went-aways, people who made one hundred records and people who made one great record and were never heard from again.
Then there’s the mess we have today, with characters who have soul mashed into the same shit sandwich as festival DJs and phonies and frauds. Hype being what it is, the dance music media being what it is, the new kid getting into this stuff is more likely to hear about the latter first and by the time they discover the real deal it might be too late. (Unless you believe in the Gateway Effect and think cheesy electronic music can light the path to something better than, say, more cheese.)
So there’s an urgency these days when you hear a good record and meet a cat who has strung four or five or a dozen of them together into something like “a career.” Keep it to yourself and you certainly feel like the coolest guy in the party, but fat lot of good it does to anyone else.
There are about 10 DJ/producers that the whole world needs to know about right now, and it’s toward the top of that list that you’ll find the name Brawther.
Most of Brawther’s records are actually records, on vinyl. This one on Cabinet Records is another.
“Soothing” is a big mental mentholated wash: synths fade in and out but never overwhelm the bass, and the drums get a workout that show the full palette this guy is working with: kicks, hats, snares and they blend seamlessly together without becoming disjointed. And percussion is even more of focus of “Visions,” nearly as stripped down as a DJ tool but with sublime waves of sensation. If you play Deep House, Soulful House, melodic Techno and any genre that falls in between that spectrum, you will find a lot to love here.
Soothing/Visions has been out for about two weeks and the fact that there are still some copies left is both an aberration and an opportunity to get your hands on them, because quite a lot of these are picked clean the minute they leave the distributors’ hands. Represses are part of the business but understandably not the obsession of an artist in his prime, and the more cartel aspects of The Discogs Community tend to get involved in selling their stock at high prices.
And though there’s been an album (2015’s Endless) and you’re quite behind already, this is not a bad place to start on a trailhead backtracking Brawther’s career. It’s still easier to do so now because I have the feeling he’s just getting started.
Tracklisting
A1: Soothing
B1: Visions
