Black Loops – “Always Moving”
Black Loops is Italian Riccardo Paffetti who has finally released his debut full-length album “Always Moving” on Freerange Records, out since May 9th on double vinyl. The house producer who lives in Berlin has stretched and varied his sound which includes some gut-wrenching soul, funk and disco in addition to his warm and breezy house and deep house sounds. The break-beatish opener “CDMX” (a nod to Mexico City?) opens the proceedings here in style and sets the pace for some utterly various palette. “Mamao” is his tribute to the legendary Azymuth drummer Ivan Conti (Azymuth will also have a new album out called “Marca Passo”, due June 6th). And with the vocoder and keys-included house/funk sounds, it actually reminds me of a sort of remix of one of their tracks on any Far Out Recordings albums.
I’m a huge fan of “Detroit Love Letter” which features Atlanta-based producer Byron the Aquarius. The deep house masterpiece boasts with irresistible pads and chords and repetitive patterns which make the track very hard to resist. Berlin-based singer Marlena Dae is featured here on four tracks: the mysterious disco house of “Electrical” is graced by her ultra soulful voice which suits the track perfectly. Really dig the percussion work on this gem which only adds to the very organic feel of the album (the majority of the tracks were played live in the studio). There is much to explore on “LSD”, another bubbling and vivid electro disco house tune where Marlena turns in another fancy performance. On the deep house stomper “Experience”, she gets more sultry and at the same time pretty cool in her delivery. And on “Pleasure Ride”, which also features some spacy synth work by Harvey Sutherland on very 80s-sounding keys and synths and which is one of the highlights of the album, she gets all enticing and teasing with some of her spoken-word entries.
And there is much more to come on the album: the electro-synth meets handclaps coolness of “Synesthesia” for example. “Time Space Matter” has one of those boogie-ing handclap grooves which are pretty compelling. Love the repetitiveness on this one. Sounding great. “Intercourse” starts with dramatic strings before some intense drum and percussion work sets in for this exuberant midtempo cut which also features some longing vocals. After the pretty underground “Slow Jamz”, “Goodbye Berlin”, the album closer, lives off its killer bass line and a synth cushion which gives it a somewhat haunting feel.
You can buy the album right here.
