Chapter 15 from the excellent Chapter 24 stable comes from Sezer Uysal, and he offers up three originals, backed by a remix from Peru’s Luis Leon.
Title track ‘Rho Persei’ sees Sezer Uysal get the EP off to a great start. It’s richly musical, with funky guitar licks and twin basslines forming the core of the track and surprisingly somber melodies filling things out, while the latter third of the track adds in additional layers of glassy riffs and intricate flutters. Sezer Uysal’s second original, ‘Bitter Struggle’, didn’t appeal to me as much as the rest of the EP. It pushes a more traditional deep house sound, with deep and dubby stabs and a pulsing bassline, but the spacey melodies that play out on top were just a little too dark and discordant for my taste. ‘Space Egg’ rounds out the trio, and it’s easily my favourite of the three, with its cool, groovy bassline and sparse but strong melodies meeting some beautifully understated pads, and when the bass starts to go for a walk, it’s pure magic. There are no “big” moments here – it’s all very subtle throughout, but utterly enchanting nonetheless. Luis Leon is left with the seemingly impossible task of trying to improve on something already pretty close to perfection, but he rises to the challenge superbly. His Cosmic Edition of ‘Space Egg’ is darker and more stripped back than Sezer Uysal’s original, with abstract chimes setting an eerie tone, and minimalistic but very effective bass work and some mechanical, rapid-fire cymbals keeping things tense. The track is a real slow-builder, finally revealing gorgeous pads just before the breakdown, and letting them come to the fore during the breakdown and in the stunning sequence that follows – I think this might even be an improvement on Sezer Uysal’s original.
This is a wonderfully original and creative EP from Sezer Uysal, and Luis Leon manages to add something really quite special too – the two versions of ‘Space Egg’ are the standouts for me, and they’re really something to behold.
‘Rho Persei’ is out now – check it out on Beatport here.
