Reflex Blue, Photograph: Vic Ramkumar
GENRE: Electronic
LABEL: Kalahari Oyster Cult
Dutch label Kalahari Oyster Cult has an ongoing love affair with Australian artists. They’ve put out records by underground house and techno acts OK EG, Reptant, Fantastic Man, Furious Frank and Roza Terenzi in the last handful of years, and label head Rey Colino recently hosted a party at Melbourne club Miscellania.
Melbourne via Berlin producer Reflex Blue is the latest homegrown artist to join the Cult, coming through with the four-track EP Fuzion, a work of proggy house music that doesn’t shy away from its 1990s influences.
The A-side is a good introduction to Reflex Blue’s minimalist take on 90s prog house, leading us to the dancefloor with the playful and energetic movement of “Outdoor Dance” and the trance-y psychedelia of “Tension Rise.”
Reflex Blue goes on a spacey, piano-house-meets-electro excursion for the B-side’s “Creepin’ Around The Bend” before bringing it home with the skippy 2-step number “Low End Freqz (Dial Up Mix),” replete with dial-up samples that evoke memories of Netscape Navigator.
There are a couple of occasions in “Outdoor Dance” where the producer carves out a few bars’ worth of dead air before rebooting the pulsing groove. During one of the stoppages, he introduces a spoken vocal sample that tells us, “Rhythm is fundamental to the spirit.” The line might sound cheesy on paper, but set amid shimmering melodies, nostalgic bass synths and four-on-the-floor drum programming, it summarises the EP’s unselfconscious euphoria.
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