- The Dream 2 Science EP is a no-brainer reissue: it's a spotless record of classic New York house that's been out of print for 22 years (as if the extortionate Discogs prices weren't enough of a hint). Project mastermind Ben Cenac was a member of Newcleus, a pioneering electro outfit who, without fail, showed up in spacesuits on the cover of nearly every single record they made. His Dream 2 Science project turns their ebullient space funk inwards, turning his thirst for novel sounds and textures towards introverted deep house.
For its age, it still sounds indelibly fresh. Cenac, already several years past the height of Newcleus, is a tremendously capable songwriter. For every piece of high-concept FX, every swatch of spacious reverb and cinematic pan, there's equal measures of depth and tension added. The record also puts live vocals front-and-center (which might be the most "vintage" thing about it; see "My Love Turns to Liquid" and "How Do I Love Thee," both crushing pieces of electronic soul). From the sublime, twilight acid of "Dream 2 Science" to spa house of "Breathe Deep," the EP moves like the easy contractions and extensions of a rubber band.
Rush Hour's press release fetishistically states, three or four times, that this is a Larry Heard-like record. OK, yeah: it's a rich, embryonic deep house record with an experimental streak. But this overlooks the fact that it has just as much in common with its own milieu as it does with some of the outer-genre, leftfield records being made today (say BNJMN or Jam City). At a time when necrophiliac house is par, the reissue provides us with a useful mirror. To hear the ways in which a deep house record can lack boundary and intentionality is a reminder that ingenuity goes deeper than genre.
トラックリスト A1 My Love Turns To Liquid
A2 Breathe Deep
A3 Mystery Of Love
B1 How Do I Love Thee
B2 Liquid
B3 Dream 2 Science