"Hame releases his debut LP, Élan, on Yoyaku, a cohesive and endlessly listenable project that encompasses the subtlety and warmth of his and Pintai’s approach."
Fresh off the back of a string of highly-rated and sought after releases on Project Indigo, Pintai, Noir & Blanche and Far Blue, Hame, despite his relatively recent arrival in a budding scene that encompasses tastemakers like Lb Honne, Ben Kaczor, Orion, Soela, Martinou, already feels like an old head, firmly at home by the fire, in a rocking chair, smoking his cigar.
These EPs have showcased an instantly unique and skilled approach to production and attracted predictable attention in the way that thoughtful, affecting deep house that retains its edge of drive will. In September last year, Hame delivered this mix for Inverted Audio and discussed his method, his Pintai label and collective, and his approach to music in curation and creation.
Now, he releases his debut LP, Élan, on Yoyaku, a cohesive and endlessly listenable project that encompasses the subtlety and warmth of his and Pintai’s approach. The album opens with washes of lush pads, demonstrating that discerning ear for chord progressions that strike emotional chords with deft clarity on Settle Down. It’s an opener that encourages the listener to do just that. A simple, ambient opener that advocates soft lighting and drawn curtains.
Bet You Wonder then sets the tone for the vast majority of the rest of the album, an eyes on the floor number playing out over a slow breakbeat and more of those lush pads and chord progressions. Big epic soundscapes and emotions abound here.
A note about the percussion on this album. Throughout, and across the range of frequencies, it is produced impeccably. Crisp and impactful, every hat, kick and snare has space to breathe, providing the introspective groove and forward motion that propels the vaporous pads and synth lines onward into the soulful dusk.
On Last Dance we find the tempo upped just a notch, the track replete with percussion skimming atop a glassy lake of high, floaty pads, and occasionally sinking gently to the sound of falling, organ-like scales.
This is followed up by the epic scale and drama of I Feel, potentially the album’s panoramic zenith, as pads sampled straight from a heavenly choir lifts a rushing breakbeat to the edge of the atmosphere. The building drama and tension cascades earthwards in a fiery stream of burning hot notes from a beautifully produced synth burst, before a playful, light, weightless melody comes hovering overhead. The track then finds itself grounded by another kind of metallic synth line that provides some grit and groove to all that air and light. As far as this album goes in sequencing, layering and attention to detail, this is Élan at its best.
To follow this up, Hame introduces the smooth, cruisy basslines, playful synth pops and soulful vocal samples of Talk To You, a track that commands a dancefloor with no more than the elegant flick of the hand that clutches its smouldering, slim cigarette, drawing figure of eight patterns in the haze of lights and sound.
Pebble Thoughts brings more of those immersive, sweeping pads, hiding bubbles of birdsong in their warm folds, before we find ourselves washed up at the shores of our focus track, Lately.
Lately is defined by its understated nature, opening with gentle reverb on its kicks and a little less of that skipping energy found on earlier tracks. Beneath this slips a lush, almost drone-like pad that warps and reshapes almost imperceptibly, as opposed to adopting an overt chord progression. Almost hesitantly, quiet synth melodies nudge their way into earshot as layers build and field recordings murmur away in the background, resulting in the type of soundscape that could quite comfortably roll on, and on, and on in perpetuity.
Retrouvailles continues that introspective, restrained mode, with more gently pulsing, drawn out synths and crisp percs, this soft carpeting stripped back at the break as little, minimal stabs take over, before the softness returns, for what feels the most minimal offering on the album.
Energy levels lift again on Time Stretch, yet more immaculately sequenced percussion instigating irresistible groove on what feels like the natural counterpart to Talk To You, before the penultimate track, Something New.
Here we find an example of just really good deep house, on a track that draws from rich, soulful vocal sampling, synth stabs that echo softly from the far corners of the observable universe, and yet more immaculate, captivating drum patterns. Conjuring up distant hillsides, woodlands, lakesides, Something New is aching to be played out in the closing moments of festivals – all yearning emotion and celebration.
The album closes on Be A Man, the slow wind down that utilises some spoken word poetry on the subject of masculinity and what it is to be a man, a topic that feels more urgent than ever in a world filled with individuals who will remain nameless, who prey upon insecurities, frustrations and isolation in order to breed hatred and division, and to promote their own ‘personal brand’.
It is this angle, upon finishing the album, this rejection of the cold, hard mask of masculinity that so many are encouraged to project in the 21st century, that seems, to me, to be the uniting theme of the album. The music on Élan is imbued with a sincerity, an earnestness that can periodically attract a kind of upturned, sneering reaction at such ‘serious’ music.
Élan asks why we should feel the need to adopt this cold veneer of intellectual superiority, and challenges the ‘cool’, cynical, sardonic attitude that so many adopt by unapologetically wearing its heart on its sleeve, by adopting a vulnerable, sincere position that puts emotion first and image far, far down the list. The result is a quietly introspective, absorbing album that will make dancefloors move, heads back, eyes closed.
Élan is out now via Yoyaku. Buy a vinyl copy from Inverted Audio Record Store.
TRACKLIST
A1. Settle Down
A2. Bet You Wonder
A3. Last Dance
B1. I Feel
B2. Talk To You
C1. Pebble Thoughts
C2. Lately
C3. Retrouvailles
D1. Time Stretch
D2. Something New
D3. Be A Man