Products

Xhin - Greyscale

ARTIST: Xhin
ALBUM: Greyscale

LABEL: Meerestief
CAT#: MTIEFCD003
BARCODE: 4025858046853

GENRE: Dance/Electronic
RELEASE: 2008-11-06

DESCRIPTION:
We are entering the last quarter of 2008 with a small sensation. After more than 30 single and EP releases the time has come to pour another layer of concrete into the foundations of a label that is serious – the time is right for meerestief's first long player. We are pleased to have tireless Xhin on our roster. We are also pleased that Xhin is the one to beautifully usher in this new era on meerestief. This pearl from Singapore and master of the multi-layered and complex House sound has sent us nine perfect tracks via glass fibre cable with the depth of the Indian Ocean and the vitality of European party institutions. Greyscale ISN'T an album for the living room but is at its extreme also a living room album. Xhin creates club music with a four to the floor beat and he only refrains from breaking out of this concept, where many people had to ditch their skills over night, for the format's sake. Greyscale nonetheless shows us the artist's flexibility with these nine tracks. The result is a consequent and tight long player. "Random Senses" is a wonderfully deep sounding opening track, restrained by harmonic chord structures and a pitched down soulful vocal followed by its reply "Zigzag" with its tight kick drum, a busy bass line and a craftily sliced saxophone sample. You could call it Fidget House with attitude. "Reversion" is a squeaky Tech House Slammer, absolutely prime time compatible whereas on "Pages" Xhin uses an overwhelming bass drum, a slowly intensifying wall of sound and his take on Dub Techno to surprise us. "Surfaced", the multi-layered come down track is another example for Xhin's typically deep sound. Melancholic pads are being accompanied all the way to the bottom of the ocean and back up by particles of sound and a tight web of hi-hat beats. Back on the surface Xhin turns into a partying club kid on "Letter by Circle", which can't resist the pull of marching minimal-techno references from the 90s. The tune lasts over 8 minutes, but it should never end really. "Back On" is an insanely nervous track and comes across like a wild animal. It is impossible to discern any structure. The various elements leap back and forth seemingly randomly like electrons around the atomic nucleus. Xhin takes this concept to the limit on the album's last track, "If You Say No", that sounds as if it's sitting behind the drums of a jazz trio in a posh Singapore Bar after finishing time.

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