🐣 CLOZEE — HARMONY (AXEL THESLEFF REMIX)

As gentle and ostensibly ‘world music’ as this track appears to be, there is something darker within; it lulls you into a state of exotic pastoral bliss, with textures that swirl around like the spirit of a rainforest, percussive ticks and clicks amidst an organic drumbeat sailing through all the sights and sounds of typically beautiful Earth. But soon we are sucked into a swamp of mystery, clanging metallics in the thin air and mists crawling across the once green vista, the vision of cave mouths yawning craggy monstrous, the untameable force at the heart of everything.

These two universes inhabit the original ‘Harmony’ by globally minded French musicmaker CloZee - a sort of slow sashaying to some globular heartbeat mixed with a distorted synth drop - which is echoed in Axel Thesleff ’s treatment of the track, a minimal reworking that pits the languor of leafy slo-house against bare bubbling beats and stark synths, a contrast that retains a sense of exoticism but dilutes it out into something more generally beautiful, whilst creating tons of space in the existential thump of the drop, a wholly unnatural counterpart to the soft omnipresence of natural, forest-conjuring sounds.

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• 🔔 Finnish producer Axel Thesleff's remix of 'Harmony' is out on Gravitas Recordings and you may stream and download via these various links.

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📠
☟ CloZee Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ official site ⚘ twitter ⚘ youtube ⚘ songkick ⚘ toneden ☟ Axel Thesleff Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ official site ⚘ twitter ⚘ spotify ⚘ instagram ⚘ songkick

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OXFORD YOU AND ME

"Warm" is such a great state to be. It contains within it all the pleasant feelings associated with being warm - in the literal sense, as a temperature, being warm is not generally an uncomfortable thing; a warm cup of tea (or coffee whatever) is still drinkable; a warm bath is positively delectable; a warm bed is inviting. Then you have warm friendships - why would we use the word "warm" for such a delightful concept as a "warm friendship"? Same goes for a warm welcome, or a warm reception. Can you be "warmly" invited somewhere, too? Probably.

You can also have warm music. Warm tones, warm sounds. And that is exactly the word I'd use to describe the cooling-on-the-windowsill-but-still-not-long-taken-from-the-oven sounds of Oxford and his song 'You And Me'. You know, this is the third song I've written about this year with that title - one by Disclosure (which is actually 'You ampersand Me') and one by Real (which is actually 'You plus Me'). So it's a popular epithet.

Anyway, back to Oxford. He is actually a man, not a place in England, called Antoine Rigail and he is from Toulouse, a place in France, which as we all know is the opposite of England. I'm only joking. Or am I? Not to worry because the focus here is actually on this lovely song, this lovely WARM song. Get warm.

Don't you feel much warmer? Everything about this song just oozes a comfortable fits-all flavour, kind of like a really nice pair of shorts that you'd wear to the beach. I'm not a girl so I don't have any knowledge of the equivalent. Sorry. But what a sound. As chilled as it is funky, in an entirely minimalist way - the single warm and soft sustain synth chords begin each bar, accompanied by the wonderfully simple muted two-note guitar melody. The deeply groovesome bassline steps on a light-up piano as bridge, all the way to your ears to dance away next to your ear drums, egged on by the tireless beat.

Towards the end, everything starts to get a bit more synthy, more bouncy, all the time - from start to finish - overseen by this cooling female vocal sample from the upper air, on a cloud perhaps. Solo synths too. But what you need to remember is the utter funk and utter chill that this man can create. Excellent, excellent stuff.

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