It is a very long time indeed since Satoshi Tomiie’s last and only album ‘Full Lick’ was released in 1999 – and it’s fair to say that wasn’t completely representative of the sound and style that has made him such a mainstay of house music. It’s good to report, then, that ‘New Day’ is much closer to the mark, and it manages to retain the early house warmth that made ‘Tears’ such a good record with Frankie Knuckles. Tomiie enjoys looking back in tracks like ‘Thursday, 2am’, which brings Mr Fingers’ ‘Can You Feel It’ to a newer dancefloor. Tomiie doesn’t spend all his time looking back though, and in the softly shaded techno of ‘Landscape’, the warm bleeps of the jazzy ‘Odyssey’ and the carefully crafted ‘Momento Magico’ there is a lasting touch of class. ‘Calm Me Up’, meanwhile, takes a tougher approach with more acidic sounds. This is a subtle album, not necessarily ground breaking on first listen but staying the course with quality productions. It’s great to have him back in the long playing fold.
5 out of 5
Reviewed by Ben Hogwood
{http://soundcloud.com/satoshitomiie/aa001-snip-2}
