Poker flat’s smug satisfaction with being 15 years old has bled into another four track EP, combining two fresh tracks with two reworks of old classics featuring a cast list of some of the labels’s biggest producers. When John Tejada’s growling ‘Sweat on the Walls’ appeared in late 2003, it sat comfortably in the grey area where the exploding minimal sounds and electro house collided, not really playing ball with either genre classification but finding favour with both DJs and standing as one of the best examples of the early twenty first century’s acid house template, and is still one heck of a tune. So I had mixed views when looking at it in remixed form, so credit where it’s due to sebo K for his much more groove laden reinterpretation. The original had a brash erotica about it, but this is more sensual, making the vocal louder and shifting the gnarly riff of the original into a much more up to date chord laden effort. It’s not as good as the original, but boy does it make sense in this climate without being completely driven by trends – straight in the bag. Tm Taylor and Gareth Whitehead get to grips with Daniel Dexter’s ‘No House for Old men’ next, a much fresher track that appeared in 2011. They keep a lot of the original’s haunting use of melody and gnarly acid undercurrent, starting pretty deep and innocuous before fully embracing the panoramic feel, a solid well produced effort. On the two new cuts Josh Wink’s shuffling percussion combines with trademark 808 squiggles on the aptly monikered ‘Groove’, whilst Anaxander’s ‘A Place to go’ is interesting without ever convincing these ears of dancefloor merit.
4 out of 5
Reviewed by Jimmy Coultas
{http://soundcloud.com/pokerflatrecordings/sets/va-four-jacks-pt1-15-years-of-poker-flat}
