Josh Butler has mastered the no messing house music in recent times. His raw, stripped down approach comes with plenty of cute studio tricks that really flesh out his simple ideas into club slaying killers. Here he pops up with a brace of new efforts, and one dub mix, on the on form Sante run label Avotre. Darius, Sydney Charles and more all release here, and the label has hosted some showcases in Ibiza this year, but nothing matches up to his new EP from Butler. Snake Skin goes first and is a perfectly macho, physical house track with bulky beats, knocking percussive hits and loads of great studio techniques that evaluate it above the sum of its parts. A dub mix is also included but is a much more reduced, freaky late night house jam for the real heads. Closing out this stellar release is Safe Zone, which is more fun and playful than the hard hitting opener and features chord stabs, a bit of colour and plenty of raw drum funk.
4.5 out of 5
Reviewed by Ian Fleming
{http://soundcloud.com/joshbutler/josh-butler-snake-skin-avotre-1}
