Four beats per minute: that is all that separates the slowest cut from the fastest on 'House Attack: Bassline Invasion, Vol.09'. With sixteen tracks packed between the 122 BPM of 'Disco Cop' and the 126 of 'The More I', 'Another Love Affair' and 'Love Me', tempo is not where this volume draws its contrasts — it is where it finds its glue. The real extremes of this RH2 collection live elsewhere: in running times, in temperament and in who gets to sing.
G major at both ends
The longest cut is J Nitti's 'Shanti Voices', 7:17 of patient build; the shortest, 'Love And Music' by Venessa Jackson and Riccardo Fiori, done in 4:34. And there is a quiet wink joining the two poles: both sit in G major, the brightest key on a record dominated by minor modes, twelve of its sixteen tracks. Jackson, a South African vocalist with a long run in soulful house, is also one of only two credited voices here; the other, Veselina Popova, arrives right at the end on KPD's 'Say Something', which closes the set at the slow extreme — 122 BPM — and in a major key: no grand finish, just the lights dimming gently.
The other axis pits temperaments against each other. On one side, the functional cheek of Makito's 'Disco Cop', the most playful title of the set and tempo twin of the closer. On the other, the classic schooling of Darren Studholme's 'Step Back (Deep Soul Mix)': 7:02 in B minor from a Cyprus-based producer with a long career crossing techno muscle with the warmth of soulful deep house.
One last, subtler contrast: the opener, Alex Inc's 'Everytime', is the only cut on the record reworked by an outside hand — JayQbowski's — against fifteen tracks signed by their own authors. That the sole reinterpretation is the front door says plenty about how this volume thinks: vary the surface, never the pulse. Between 122 and 126 everything shares the same house; what changes, and sharply, is who lives in it.
Sources: RA · Viberate
