The track that explains this volume doesn't open it — it sits buried at number six. 'Patient Love', by Venessa Jackson with YanniJay, is both the longest cut (7:09) and the slowest (123 BPM) of the sixteen, and that double condition says plenty. Jackson is a South African vocalist who has recorded for labels like King Street Sounds and The Disco Express and who, by her own profile, embraces every branch of house music; here she gets the room that résumé calls for. On a compilation where most cuts sit between 124 and 126 BPM, dropping a gear and stretching past the seven-minute mark turns the track into the record's emotional center of gravity.
Dove, New York schooling
'Freaks On The Floor' is the other mandatory stop. DJ Dove was born in New York and raised in Hoboken, and names Armand Van Helden, Daft Punk and Basement Jaxx among his references; you don't have to force the reading to connect that lineage with a title this club-minded. Five and a half minutes at 125 BPM in A-flat minor, the only track on the record in that key — a detail harmonic mixers will need to handle with care.
Landing in F major
The closer deserves scrutiny too. Half Caste's 'Pitch My Hand' sees the record out with nearly seven minutes (6:59) in F major, and there's a decision in that: thirteen of the sixteen tracks live in minor keys, so ending on one of the three majors — alongside 'Dance' and 'Sleepwalker' — reads as a deliberate landing, a window of light after so much chiaroscuro. In between, SIMON VINCENT's 'Do You Hear Me' and DJ Patisso's 'House Feelin'' touch the 130 BPM ceiling, but it's these three cuts — the voice, the pedigree and the ending — that give character to a volume which, without them, would be merely a solid label compilation.
Sources: RA · When We Dip
