Artist: Doomwork
Album: Club Abduction
Label: Street King
Release Date: 09/07/2012
In contrast to their collective name the latest reason why Italians may well be doing it better aren't very scary at all. In fact, there's something disarmingly wholesome about almost everything on their debut LP.
That is to say it's far from the cynical, scared to be itself dance music that seems to plague the ‘credible' release schedule in 2012. Firmly rooted in deeper tech origins, the collection is neither outdated, nor outmoded, but doesn't seem to be cut from the same cloth as most either.
Powerful and understated, tunes that do little and yet have plenty going on are hard to come by, which is why Grey's Disclosure deserves some recognition. Complex percussion, some kind of weird vocal distortion and heavy kicks dominate most of the six minutes, with the occasional warm melody and breakdown only having an effect because things are predominantly heads down.
In contrast Red Lips opens with drum patterns close to Big Chief, but gradually takes us to far more expansive sounds, basslines reverberating under the weight of soaring synths and organ stabs. Progressive, groovy, whatever the right term it's immersive, and along with the glittering synth melody and looming low end of Revision shows Doomwork's ability to craft commanding noises that could easily control a sizeable crowd, without falling into overblown main room piffle.
Even the oft-obligatory and mundane chill-out tracks manage to score pretty highly here. Down Town is melancholic e-soul, and wouldn't sound out of place on labels like Compost or!K7, if that's not too lazy and reference-dependant a description. Meanwhile, Plastic Town has more than an air of Play-era Moby, loose breakbeats, gentile keys, and what could spuriously be dubbed Deep South vocals.
Impressive, not least as most would be incapable of stepping so close to some of the bald-headed superstar's most familiar work and walking away this memorable. It's also indicative of the original point here. Clearly Club Abduction is an album of music those responsible care about, and betrays their lack of concern for judgements and associations, albeit they would no-doubt prefer it if we all enjoyed the release. As a listener it's pretty difficult not to feel some of the contagion that results from that passion, elevating this from a very good offering to something a little more special.
