- Jordon Alexander's house music alias, Mall Grab, is the name of a skateboarding faux pas. A mall grab—where you hold a board by the trucks—is a sign of an amateur, something Alexander suggested he was guilty of when he described his music last year as "ignorant house." He's averaged an EP every three months since his debut in 2015, and none of his records have betrayed that sort of inexperience. As diverse as Mall Grab can be (a recent track was called "I've Always Liked Grime"), they usually sound somewhere between the scuffed sonics of L.I.E.S. and the dreamier 1080p, with '90s New Jersey house or Kanye West-type soul samples squeezed into the mix.
I Just Wanna gets by on its whiplashing grooves, even when its other aspects don't seem quite as sharp. The title track's elated vocal, backed by a blast of horns, is overexposed in the mix—it's the sort of thing best enjoyed in a small dose at the right moment. Even as a DJ tool, "I Just Wanna" is two-dimensional, and "Feelin' Good"'s '90s house flavour might have been the same were it not for a fevered rhythm and catchy male vocal. Sandwiched between these two is the excellent "Kalumbo," whose melody and breakbeat slant are more potent. Alexander is a talented refurbisher of old sounds, but here he's more convincing when sculpting from fresh materials.
TracklistA1 I Just Wanna
B1 Kalumbo
B2 Feelin' Good