GENE HUGHES Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Two enigmatic raw deep house cuts from Gene Hughes aka. Bluemoon Productions, debuting for HotMix for the first time. Technically first released in 1990 via Code Blue, this remastered vinyl edition is as pure a slice of otherworldly house realness you can get. The mood throughout is nocturnal, fade-to-black, lamplit, verging on wild - opener 'D' is darkly jazz-chorded and peppered throughout with the sound of hyenas cackling, as if to suggest a nighttime jamboree at the edge of civilization; then there's the Latin guitar glidings-above of 'R' and the beautifully, unusually wompy drumwork-dreamwork of 'A'; and finally, closer 'S' takes the form of a sonic flex: the slowest breakbeat track we've encountered in a while, whose choppy slices, feel-it vocals and deep Reeses force us to consider our unconscious associations around bassweight and floor-readiness.