A bunch of gloomy, messy, all-over-the-place Techno filled up my night last night. At home I just wanted to breathe, and it’s a fucking miracle I didn’t play Enya or smooth jazz to try to lift the pall. Instead, I pulled out a record from a few months ago that I picked up but never wrote about – CEV’s Magnetic, a bouncy, colorful track that was remixed by Scott Diaz. The label is putting out a ton of material at the moment – probably too much, to be honest – but I fell across this new one in the slush pile next and couldn’t let it pass without notice.
Confusingly, there’s only one song on here, called “Down To The Top,” on an EP called Last Men Jackin’, which is but a letter removed from a totally different EP released over the summer called Last Man Jackin’, which didn’t contain this track at all. That aside, two of the remixes here absolutely glow. Marc Cotterell (I assume, given the scarcity of Cotterells in the scene in at the moment) takes a carnivalesque, off-kilter original and forces it into some seriously smooth Deep House. If you’ve got something that sounds vaguely ’90s-ish, this will go down well alongside it.
The second and the best on the EP in my opinion is from Mike Millrain – a legendary figure in the UK Garage scene. This is a classic production: strings, soulful vocal clips looped into infinity and a bounce that will make backsides wobble.
Apparently this was unsuccessfully funded on qrates, another of the vinyl crowdsourcing sites that have been popping up lately, so expect a digital release.
It’s Time: originally published in 5 Magazine Issue 147 featuring Kevin Yost, Jenifa Mayanja and Sound Warrior, Gavin Hardkiss, why music got cheap and gear got expensive (and it’s mostly your fault) and more. Become a member of 5 Magazine for First & Full Access to Real House Music for only $2 per month!
CEV’s: Last Men Jackin’ (Remixes) (Hi! Energy Records)
1. Down To The Top (Cotterell Remix) (7:10)
2. Down To The Top (Original Mix) (7:07)
3. Down To The Top (Mike Millrain Remix) (7:45)
4. Down To The Top (K’s Fire Alarm Remix) (6:43)