BONTAN レコード& CD

Review: Since making his debut in 2014, Bontan has made a serious impression. This first outing on Hot Creations follows much-played material on Madtech, Circus, Toolroom, Cajual and Suara. "The First Time" is retro-futurist in feel, featuring as it does a combination of undulating, acid-style motifs, jacking Chicago-style drum fills, bouncy tech-house beats and a drowsy, seemingly sampled spoken word vocal. Flipside "Personal Question" takes a similar sonic approach, utilizing a bolder, Adonis style bassline, nagging bleep noises, and delay-laden vocal snippets to conjure a sweaty, late night mood. Both tracks are solid rather than sensational, but undoubtedly have the right blend of ingredients to cause major dancefloor devastation.

Review: A rare outing for Josh Butler's occasional Origins Rcrds imprint, which has so far released a handful of singles and EPs since launching in 2017. It sees the rising star and Kerri Chandler favourite join forces with Bontan, a fellow UK producer best known for his outings on Hot Creations and Crosstown Rebels. It features three passes on 'Call You Back'. There's the original mix, a fluid, loose and sub-heavy slab of tech-house/deep house fusion rich in undulating melodic motifs, sparse riffs and shuffling drums, a fine DJ tool based around the melodic hooks, percussive builds and vocal samples and a rock-solid build-release-build drum track built around weighty kick-drums and hissing drum machine cymbals.