Selador’s tenth release sees Dave Seaman team up with Funkagenda for the first time since 2010’s re-release of ‘The Mighty Ming’. Up on remix duties we have Berlin-based producer Dapayk and France’s Nicolas Masseyeff.
‘Naughty Forest’ comes out swinging, with cavernous bass tones and hard-hitting percussion. Quickly building momentum, it soon starts to foreshadow the track’s central tuned-percussion hook. A quick breakdown introduces a fluttering female vocal and allows the hook to emerge fully, allowing the bass to re-engage to great effect. The main breakdown focuses briefly on the vocal before the bass goes walkabout, cycling through an uplifting chord progression and setting up the main hook for one final blowout.
A brief, metallic intro sets the tone for Dapayk’s tougher version of the track, which takes Dave Seaman and Funkagenda’s central motif and works looped fragments of it over a brooding, techy groove, while a warped bass part adds to both the trippiness and menace factors. There’s a terrific swing to the remix, the production values are really high, and it’ll no doubt work the right dance-floor, but this is definitely the version that appealed least to me.
More to my taste is the fantastic remix from Nicolas Masseyeff. Kicking off with an almost tribal feel, the remix soon starts to build with snappy drums and heavy low-end punctuation. The track really comes to life in the breakdown though, where a simple but gripping organ melody starts to play out, soon underpinned by an intricate, muscular bassline. When the track springs back to life, the combination of the bassline and Masseyeff’s awesome percussion work is just spectacular, with the re-emergence of the organ giving the track its finale. The closing minute drops the bassline out, letting the remix finish on the refreshingly incongruous combination of bluesy organ lines playing off the evocative vocal samples from the original.
A huge original from Dave Seaman and Funkagenda, and an even better remix from Nicolas Masseyeff – it’s hard to see what more you could possibly want from this fine release from Selador. 8/10
