- New York house music with a dreamy West Coast bounce.
- If finding a New York-based artist who came up in the city is a rarity, Olive T is an uncommon and valuable gem. The producer and DJ spent much of her formative period in the '90s listening to house, a strong influence you can hear across her soulful studio mixes that overwhelmingly prioritize the pioneers of US house and techno.
But even considering this background, and with her latest release arriving on a very Brooklyn label, Sorry Records, Birdin In Space reaches outside the five boroughs for inspiration. Across the record's original extended cuts, the jubilant and airy melodies remind me of the leftfield lilt of Vancouver house music. You can hear it in the sleek, sneaking bassline of the record's title track, which picks up at midpoint with a bubbling trance melody that instantly gives the illusion of an accelerating BPM. It sounds like something that could've been released on Planet Euphorique (a Berlin label with Canadian roots), but the silvery disco strings still loosely tether it to the East Coast. And the sauntering bassline, pastoral sheen and brief, punishing midsection of "Shimmer Or Glimmer" recalls the trance-inflected house that came out of the region in the mid-'90s.
The roles are reversed on the remix side, as Canadian producers from opposite coasts crib from US styles to push the originals into fifth gear. Once "Birdin In Space" is in Montreal producer and Ghettotech fiend Martyn Bootyspoon's hands, it's hardened with rumbling bass and pert Baltimore club breaks. Vancouver's Overland picks up the pace of "Shimmer Or Glimmer" with a jaunty kick that sounds straight out of Detroit. As Olive T dips her toe into a melange of regional influences, this wonky house record is a colorful pick-me-up when the plasticky melodies are left to linger and marinate, and a dance floor weapon when it's punchy and tough.
Lista de títulos01. Birdin In Space
02. Birdin In Space (Martyn Bootyspoon's Out To Lunch Mix)
03. Shimmer Or Glimmer
04. Shimmer Or Glimmer (Overland's Macro Minimal Mix)