Classic euphoric Solid Groove. Legendary UK techno and house producer, Aubrey (Allen Saei), made a career of toeing the line between the two genres, typically with a trademark sense of groove, swing, and funk. I always found his signature style of mixing and mastering particularly unique; never uniform, you can hear different elements like a drum loop pop more in the high end and a rather boomy kick saturate the mix in another track depending on what part of the song he wanted to accentuate.
In addition to his astoundingly prolific Solid Groove label (30 releases in 30 years), Saei managed multiple sublabels like his Textures label highlighted above. This 003 record from 1997 has a distinctly housy-er sound through its 4 tracks, but the A2 Other Forms caught my attention with it’s beautiful harmonics and progression. A natural feeling bassline and infectious groove greet you early in the track and are quickly accompanied by swirling synth pads sweeping. Higher key hits and warm strings fit right into the drum blueprint to propel the emotional barometer of the recording into a euphoric zone. Very sexy composition!!
There are plenty of folks reselling Aubrey’s original release records on Discogs, but you can also catch much of his back catalog uploaded digitally on bandcamp as well.
Highly recommended digging!
Jackson Ryland 