After the recent success of their expansive debut full length on Idle Hands and while they bask in the glory of their recently well received Resident Advisor podcast, Jacob Hodge and Matt Lambert push on with a new EP on Bristols Futureboogie. To date Outboxx have fomented their own ebullient house style that is imbued with a keen sense of uplifting melody, plenty of analogue dust and some heavyweight bass, largely on Bristol based labels, and this new EP sees them continue in that fine form.
The EP kicks off with ‘The Fade’, a lively deep house cut with sandy hi hats and harmonic melody hits that surfs and skips with a subtle but sensuous energy. Growing increasingly garage in style as it rolls on, chopped up vocal patches add more oomph before ‘Rikkies Groove’ gets nimble within its authentically aged house framework. Serene and golden pads twist and turn behind frazzled melody stabs and twinkly colours add that late night feel Outboxx are such masters at evoking. ‘Letting Go’ is more in line with the downbeat trip-hop that made up the latter half of their debut: the glowing vocals of regular collaborator Naomi drift between loose drum hits, scattered beats and genuinely jazzy melody motifs. The results are inescapably dreamy and delightful. Finally, ‘Need You’ is a cavernous construct of echoing claps and buried deep kicks that swells and subsides, implodes and explodes. The titles refrain is repeated over and over and bleeds seamlessly into the arrangements between big string sweeps, noodling horns and classic cymbal splashes. Once again Outboxx prove that feel-good house music needn’t be lowest common denominator or weak-ass house but that it instead can be as richly musical and artistic as any avant-movements.