Israel displays the upstairs and downstairs club experience, the relaxation of lounge and the fuller tones of the floor.
[Release page] The wind is in Alex Israel’s sails. The US artist started out on Willie Burns’ W.T. Records and was soon picked up by Den Haag’s Crème Organization for an EP. Mr Israel keeps the fires lit with a new EP out on an up and coming label from his homeland, Night Gallery.
Witchetty Dreams twitches into life with the dreamlike surrealism of “She Is So Nice.” The track has a melted chocolate quality, dripping and slowly folding as analogue bubbles mix with distanced vocals and chords. Israel takes some elements of House and others from Techno and slows them into an electronic lounge. The title piece is gin and tonic synthesizer music, clever with a funk cool to it. The flip sees some muscle getting flexed. A ricocheting snare ping pongs across warbling analogue lines to produce a lively piece of machine music. “Tocelo” finishes the EP and keeps that rawer edge. Warm keyboard movements are at the core with some nice drum programming adding the necessary sharpness.
Alex Israel is part of that new generation of interesting electronic producers. Witchetty Dreams sticks to no one style, but neither does it complicate genres through unnecessary splicing. Israel displays the upstairs and downstairs club experience, the relaxation of lounge and the fuller tones of the floor. A solid addition to both artist and label catalogs.
Wichetty Dreams is available on Night Gallery. [Release page | Juno]
