Beauty and the bang

Ah, nice. Another Wax. 90009. Belongs to the “no need to pre-listen” category. They should have an extra function at decks.de, like an automatic add. This artist – add every time. This label – add add add. All. All Wax, yes, confirm. Click.

The nice side effect would be getting it thrown in with all the other vinyl that you order, and instead of getting what you know from the snippets you go like, oh, nice, let’s listen to this. Expectantly dropping the needle, not much of a clue as to what exactly is in store for your ears.

In this case it would have you grinning foolishly, first when the beat kicks in. Couldn’t be more convincing. You might think, hey, that’s quite banging for a Wax release, nice, let’s go. And then a second time when the synths drop, and you’re thrown in a totally different direction. On top of all that bang there is all that beauty. Like tears at peak time kind of beauty.

You get a lot of that on the A side. And a pretty good dose on B too. Ah, how I love it. Deep, deep bass rumbling, unassuming hi-hats doing their job, and the rest is supreme floating stuff. Sure, Wax is Shed’s more emotional line of releases, but this one? Deeper, warmer, the kind of stuff that lets you wake up on that dance floor and realize, fuck, yes, I’m alive and that’s a really cool thing.

It’s a pretty amazing trick he’s pulling here, the rhythmic structure could easily have been a little too heavy, but it just isn’t, and the chords could have slipped towards the corny, but they just don’t. It’s coherent, it works, you understand that a pumping beat like this one isn’t heavy by definition. All the energy reinforces what these wistful synth melodies are doing to you.

Here’s a little suggestion. If you haven’t heard it yet, don’t. Buy it without pre-listening. Have it shipped, put it on the turntable, give it a virgin listen. You will thank me for it.

Release for review:
WAX – #90009 – WAX – WAX 90009

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