Italian producer Wiki returns to Sub_Urban to follow up the lovely ‘Stories’ from earlier this year, and for this fifth release from the label he’s joined by newcomer Oneplus. Together Wiki and Oneplus offer up four tracks ranging from deep house to chilled-out downtempo to melodic techno.
‘Room 29’ is immediately lovely, with soft pads and ripples over a kickdrum. There’s a lovely Balearic vibe to the track, which is only enhanced by the warm bass, classic-sounding soulful vocal, and dreamy atmospherics. This is a top slice of vocal deep house from Wiki and Oneplus.
Wiki and Oneplus’s second track is the downtempo ‘Yakamoz’. Introduced by disembodied voices, the track features a lovely chord sequence over a gentle rhythm, graced by superb plucked melodies. As a piece of after-hours fare, it’s absolutely spellbinding.
The Sunrise Edit of ‘Yakamoz’ ups the tempo slightly, though it’s still relatively laidback at a cool 116bpm, and works the main ideas from the original together with some eastern-flavoured pipework over a four-to-the-floor house beat. It retains some of the charms of the original, and the moment when the main melody emerges during the breakdown halfway through is really effective, though I felt the track worked somewhat better in its original downtempo incarnation.
‘Third Floor’ is quite different to anything else on the EP, offering up a melodic techno/neo-trance cut. In terms of the sounds and arrangements, this doesn’t deviate much from most of the recent stuff in this genre, but the spacey, interwoven glassy melodies are really strong and they cohere into something really moving. Fans of this kind of sound (which definitely includes me) will find this extremely appealing.
There’s a tremendous range on display from these young Italian producers, which is all the more impressive since it’s pretty much all comes off. ‘Room 29’ is the highlight for me, though ‘Third Floor’ isn’t far behind. All in all, this is a deeply impressive outing from Wiki and Oneplus and Sub_Urban here. 8.5/10
