love’s all right
(AMR-26)
This project is a culmination of a yearlong effort between the Deep Explorer and Altered Moods camps, with careful selection of the choicest beats from both groups finally making it together on wax.
The front side features Deep Explorer’s Dubbyman (Jose Alvarez) starting things off fresh with a nice, funky slider in the title track, “Love’s All Right.” Easily the most chilled cut on the record, featuring kickback’d tambs, a fat bassline infused with pianos, strings, and some lush tremoloed pads, and laced with a sample from “Give Me All Your Love,” this one’s meant for beach cruises with the top down and the stereo blasting. If you want to hear or play “Love’s All Right” at the club, then you’re looking for the Above Smoke dub mix. Dubby’s brother Javier brings it raw and fierce right away, only holding back a thick, filtered pad that opens slowly as the track progresses. A breakdown gives DJs an opportunity to cut in the next track, or simply let it ride.
On the flip, “Diamond” by Mr. Done! is another banger that can be enjoyed either on the dance floor or on the iPod. With its stabby pads and leads and meaty percussion laced and a hint of gentle strings and dainty bells backing up the rear, wherever you are, you’ll find yourself putting Mr. Done! on repeat. The final track, “Woozy!” by Vanguard Sound’s Amir Alexander, features a hard-charging bassline designed to make you move and a warbly, moody pad that belies the track’s title, yet doesn’t short it on the ultra-deepness you’ve come to know and love at AMR.
