- Christopher Rau is a reliable purveyor of the kind of featherweight deep house we associate with labels like Smallville and Aim. But on his first release for Baaz's Office Recordings, he continues an off-the-beaten-path approach that he first revealed in 2012. On Broke, Rau scuffs up his beats like a pair of fashionably distressed jeans.
Lengthy A-side "Mehris Groove" is more rockin' than Rau's usual pacifist jams, cycling through strange sound effects and distant samples. "Broke" bears down even harder, albeit carefully: the bassline dive-bombs through each bar underneath kick drums that hit with the force of steel-toed boots, and there's little melody to speak of outside of faint disco strings. "Im Sumpf" is the weirdest one here, decorating a drowsy beat with murmured speech and dripping sounds. It's fascinatingly detailed, but lacks the balance between unconventional and functional that the other two get just right.
TracklistA Mehris Groove
B1 Broke
B2 Im Sumpf