Blue Amazon & Zak Gee – Interpretations [REVIEW & MIX]

Interpretations – Blue Amazon (reviewed by Jon the Dentist)

AVAILABLE NOW HERE

I may have spent my DJ career playing, writing and dancing to trance but I have a secret passion to share with you…(Don’t tell anyone).. I LOVE house music. There you go I said it. If it wasn’t for this wonderful music where would all the others genres be? Even in the height of 90s bangin’ hard culture and us DJs in London making our way to Trade for some after party R and R, after a night’s work, house music continued to thrive from its 80’s roots. From the Boys Own crew and Express 2, all the way across the pond to labels like Strictly and artists such as Tony Humphries and Junior Vasquez in clubs like The Sound Factory and The Limelight (my two fave clubs ever, both in NYC), house music continued to thrive and pump away providing a consistent backdrop to whatever musical chaos was forming elsewhere. And if, like me, you loved all that, then this Blue Amazon album is for you.

For this is PROPER house music. The sort of deep mystical house odyssey you might find on a Digweed or Bedrock trip. I can tell you, with so many muddled genres out there that don’t seem to know what they are, it was a pleasure to mix something as musically sublime as this collection. It does exactly what it says on the promo blurb tin, it is an ‘electronic exhibit’.

Rather than separate out each track and try and describe it, as if one can really do that with any success in a music review, let’s just assume the merging of track into track is seamless; something I have tried to create with my mix of it. For an album entitled Interpretations, that is exactly what different mixes of this collection will do. You will bring your own love of House music to the tracks and your bespoke mix will be your voice as they are played to your audience. Mine is just one interpretation. The driving hats, the subliminal synth licks, the deep rolling and sometimes crunchy basslines, all will merge together to form sonic harmony, and that is a rare thing these days.

In a world where over produced EDM and monochromatic bland techno at the other end of the spectrum of mediocrity, seem to rule the pages of Beatport, this work of art, because that is what it is, will stand out as a shining beacon to what can be created with digital technology. There are no over elaborate tricks of filtering and full throttle compression, no super charged kicks, and no pounding snare rolls and rises, filtered here there and every where. No one will distort and confuse your senses with stereo bass lines either. It is subtle, though no less brilliant for it, and provides the listener with refined silky textures and a depth most artists don’t have. This is a masterclass from a musical talent.

I never like using the word ‘journey’ as a rule, but that is what this is, but rather than being thrown around the cockpit of a stealth jet looping through high octane altitudes this is a soothing train ride, through the Alps, the Orient Express in all its splendour and there you will find yourself, relaxing, in a silk smoking jacket with a warm brandy and slicked back hair enjoying the company of Counts and Countesses. Pure class. All aboard.