I stared at this record for two weeks, three weeks, then a month. It can’t be that good, can it? It can. It isn’t this well-produced, is it? It is. People aren’t already going crazy over this, are they? They are.
Brame & Hamo are from Sligo, Ireland, and everyone seems to think this is the most special thing about a pair who have produced the most solid release for a debut imprint as you can find. These tracks are phenomenal, the sort of thing that compels DJs to slap stickers over labels in order to maintain the longevity of their secret weapon just little bit longer. (I think it’s too late.)
“Clockwerk” is a collaboration between Brame & Hamo and it’s marvelous, with swirling strings and quick vocal hits wrapping around the ticking of the track’s namesake. It’s bested only perhaps by the remix from Session Victim, which hits the ignition and revs up like an engine block thawing a sheet of ice around it.
Side B is devoted to more mellow pursuits. “S.O.U.L.” (a Hamo solo production) is downtempo at its finest – the second great downtempo track I’ve written about this month after Rick Wade’s Golden Harvest. “Full Custody” by Brame is more chill funk than House or downtempo and probably could have been the centerpiece of a whole EP itself.
This is a vinyl-only release for Splendor & Squalor and it’s easy to see why they saved their pennies for it. The goods and nothing but the goods from start to finish.
[…] for Splendor & Squalor (sometimes called Clockwerk for its A side track) was described in these pages as “phenomenal” and “the sort of thing that compels DJs to slap stickers over […]