Search - Ror-Shak :: Deep

Solid, Raw Fusion

Daniel Osiecki | Seattle, WA | 08/15/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This little gem of an album was a total surprise to me. I originally heard about it (and bought it) our of curiosity about the track "Fate or Faith", which is essentially a rework of the track "I Know" by Hybrid. Given my bias towards Hybrid, it's no surprise that I think that "Fate or Faith" is simply brilliant, with clean layers and a subdued breaksline giving a new spin on a now-classic vocal recording by Julee Cruise.



The rest of the album is similar in many ways. Melodic vocal tracks laid across minimal breaks, drum & bass, and downtempo house. The standout feature of this album, though, is how UNDERproduced it sounds. Ror-Shak clearly laid off the compressors and filters for all the songs, sticking with the hard edges, tight frequencies, and grit of the original samples and recordings. The effect makes the songs sound either musically introspective (an album for producers?) or somehow classic - mixed with certain instrumentation choices, this could have fooled me for an album from a decade or two ago.



Cleverly, the album cover and booklet mirror the production approach - black and white, hard lines, nonstandard and functional.



If I had to guess influences, I would list Hybrid, Weekend Players, mabye some Thievery Corporation, just to give you a starting point. If that sounds like a wide spectrum that's hard to distill onto a single album, you'd be right. This isn't so much a coherent album as a set of independently great songs. Vocals range from dark, to soulful, to even poppy.



It's only a pity that this got released on Koch rather than Zyx, so this is no longer a RIAA-free album."

Who's the chosen fool that we follow...

Jorge E. Trujillo | NC, USA | 08/09/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Heard for the first time on Yahoo music

Captivating me with the atmospheric sounds

Reminding me of DMode, Morcheeba and MAttack's Mezzanine

A delicious candy for my ears

Great recording

Not impressive but very very refreshing for this scorching heat.

Buy it and pray for more"