Out of all of the old school producers who still have a credible current body of work, nobody can surprise you like Gene Hunt. You think he’s fallen into a groove but he’ll bounce from a soulful house gem to relaunching refugee throwbacks from the previous century.
This time it’s acid, and it’s hard acid of the sort you’d no longer associate with Hunt’s records. The title of Living In A Room is a deliberate play on Gene Hunt’s first release, 1989’s Living In A Land, whose wavy acid pulse revealed the invisible influence of the legendary producer Armando.
“Modivation” is the Son of Living In A Land, the precociousness of youth lapping its elder and tying its tail into knots. It has the driving aggression of Robert Armani but the kind of complex digressions and just plain oddities (a pregnant pause right in the center) that are Gene Hunt’s signature. “GH 326” is thick and luscious, with all of the bells and whistles (literally). The A side’s “Detroit Chitown” is a lullaby by comparison, the squelch buried deep in the mix beneath a lustrous bed of percussion.
