- The Brooklyn boys keep swinging with a summer-ready posse cut: Significant Others appears as the crest of a wave fueled by a six-month steady current of strong releases and renowned parties at their Williamsburg headquarters. As the title suggests, although Wolf and Lamb is a duo at its core, Zev and Gadi draw a great deal of energy and support from the crew they've assembled. This label roster roll-out puts group talents on display with a diverse set of tracks that still resolutely embraces W+L's brand of sultry and spare deep house.
Lee Curtiss opens with his own twist on the Maya Angelou vocal that graced Seth Troxler's "Aphrika" a few months ago. In addition to adding vocals, Angelou has become the default icon for the release's promotion: Rather than turning out a normal PR sheet, the Wolf and Lambers are instead hyping their "new audio software" called The Angelizer. ("The full Angelizer 2.0 turns bored, white male vocals into the wonderful, wise voice of Maya Angelou!") Lee takes the "software" for a spin over an uptempo house groove that derives its force from dueling basslines—one a sampled thumb-slap, one a lurking woofer wobble.
Gadi's own "I'll Set Your House" follows, and it's quite a scene-stealer, a murky, resolutely hypnotic roller that plunges deep in a ketamine submarine. It glows with druggy clarity, traveling far while somehow not moving at all. A mix of techno and house elements lends the tune plenty of personality, letting a Detroit-y synth shoot like lightning over a fantastically warped vocal sample.
Zev, meanwhile, rocks the weird singing/eerie synth combo harder on the flip, lifting up out of the k-hole whirlpool for a more muscular, uptempo jam, made of chest-thump bass and warm, sweaty expressiveness. With their tunes back to back, it's not hard to see how together Gadi and Zev form a kind of stylistic axis around which the creative energies of their brethren can freely circulate, allowing Nicolas Jaar, for example, to explore his Latino leanings on the closer, the equally gorgeous and cartoony "El Bandido," which sounds like a Roberto Rodriguez pulpy-gunfight version of Luciano/Ricardo style folk-house.
The two digital-only tracks, by newcomers Le Loup and Slow Hands, are as solid as their waxen brothers—the former a slice of seductive house with goofily confessional vocal, the latter a downtempo dab of Balearic-y make-out disco. Together they round out a key chapter in what's already been a banner year.
Tracklist A1 Lee Curtiss - South Aphrika
A2 Gadi - I'll Set Your House
B1 Zev - This Feeling
B2 Nicolas Jaar - El Bandido
Digital: Le Loup - I Keep Secrets
Digital: Slow Hands - Fast Tongue