It's house music. But it's house music with a difference. It's electro-house music. And not just any old electro-house music, but... well, not every bite of electro-house I take tastes as delicious as the atmosphere given off in the Casino Night Zone from Sonic II; no, it's not every day that the electronic claque of French-touch feeling house gets mixed with chiptune-flavoured VGM-inspired music, as has happened here, but it's always a better day when something like this is discovered.
Something like what? Something like 'Summertime Memories' by musicmaker Ujico* (with asterisk, that's no typo). IRL name, Keitaro Ujiie, he's an 18-year-old producer from Tokyo who also makes music under the name Snail's House, under which moniker he has previously released an EP called Kirara for Japan-based label Trekkie Trax (associated with other dance-based artists like Carpainter, who's also counted as a founder of the label). 'Summertime Memories' is a two-week old track that first, if you have any penchant for anime aesthetics, lures you in with its artwork, and then sucker punches you right in the groove bone with an explosive dab of HOUSE. And it's a free download: double win.
It'd be unfair to call this entirely house, though. Even though the kicks thud and the hi-hats skitter intricately along with the best of 'em, even though its snares boom with simmering pugilism, it seems (after first listen at least) to have more in common with future funk than straight house. Why? Because of the pulsing feel of is continual beat, the ebb-and-flow of sidechained sounds that punctuate future funk jams the world over. Admittedly, however, this style does feel as though it derives from French-touch house anyway, so what am I saying?
Added to this booming feel-good rhythm are stuttering synth chords, bold melody lines bleeping with chiptune aesthetics, saw-wave synth bass, the constant plink of a rhythmic boop, chopped and garbled vocal samples, all of it never jostling for space but running concurrent to each other with fugue-like complexity. It's urgent and dirty, summing up the humidity and bustling joy of summertime in just under four minutes of irrepressible groove, and therefore deserving of the description given by its maker on SoundCloud: 夏に向けたエレクトロなチューンです! ("This is the electro tune of the summer!")
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