Chaim / ‘Alive’
CD / Digital
BPitch Control / Released February 21st 2011
House music all night long seems to be the mantra here. Or at least for the most part anyway. A kind of trippy, deep but engaging house that is.
Apparently Chaim Avital grew up sneaking into Tel Aviv’s notoriously die-hard party scene. This background nurtured a love for heavy euphoria until a trip to New York opened his eyes up to the more soulful end of the dance spectrum, which Alive is saturated in. Disco infused piano and vocal filled rhythms are everywhere, not least in the classic riffs of Everything, a track that’s got grooves coursing through its slightly sedate veins.
More psychedelic, or at least experimental noises are found the further you dig. Rehab feels like Matthew Herbert making music in North Africa- it’s foreign, but still just a computer track in disguise. And from here on in the early ‘classic’ vibes begin to wane, or rather ease, allowing more contemporary ideas to come to the fore. Don’t Shout offers a kind of gospel inspired drummy techno, made slightly darker by distant distortion while not being shy of proud vocals. Popsky, on the other hand, brings on a wall of futurist funk noise that belongs in some space age basement of filters and keys.
As with so many contemporary producers, Chaim’s goal appears to be taking that which has been, and turning it upside down. So here we’ve got the classic sounds of a Big Apple loft, met with a refusal to make things feel familiar. They say there’s a renaissance occurring in ‘real’ house music right now. We’re not sure about that, though there’s plenty of fresh activity. Regardless, the last few years have seen a host of people prove it’s possible to turn that dancefloor sound into home, or even earphone listening material, which is no mean feat.
