Future Classic: Bakey Ustl “A Tender Place / Nose Candy”

The first time I heard A Tender Place, I was just waiting for the change up to happen, or for something to break in the song and the more I waited, the more avant-garde the song became. I didn’t know what to expect next, if the track would pick up or slow down, and I didn’t really get it. Then a couple of minutes into it, after a stream of cut up samples, emerged an upbeat brilliant dirty little sex chant! It was so good, just plain filth, slipped right in, sung to a House piano melody and as quickly as this wonderful tune appeared, it disappeared back into static and repetitive bass, fading in and out throughout the track.

I’ll be honest – I love the ridiculous catchy sex chant strung out into a choreographed dance number, it’s my favorite part, but I can equally appreciate how unconventional and experimental this song is. The way the song is constructed and sounds is not necessarily easy on the ear as it doesn’t work with a standard formula. It’s repetitive, speeds up and slows down irregularly, and it sounds distorted on purpose. He even randomly throws in an over extended period of silence after a drop in the track, leaving you on the edge of your seat with just the sound of a record spinning, wanting more.

There’s a lot of pitch dropping and so much sampling happening, layers of vocals, samples and beats on top of each other fading in and out, making everything sound slightly confusing. But it’s all centered around this amazing House chant and to me, all these things combined make for an exceptional production. Bakey Ustl does it well.

The music video for A Tender Place, by Luca Granito, is just as creative as the track; it is perfectly fitted to and reflective of the experimental nature of the song. The images are synced to the beat as much as they could be, and the footage is a splendid collage of old school clips, from where I do not know. I sadly do not possess that level of master musical nerd-ism to know what Rap and R&B videos/films the imagery is from but I think I saw Tupac and Whitney Houston in there at least once.

Brilliant collage of imagery and sound

Floor-killing House music from Firecracker‘s new sublabel, dropping the hugely in-demand heat of Bakey Ustl‘s ‘A Tender Places’. This cut has been receiving much attention of late in the sets of Jackmaster, Ben UFO and Joy Orbison, sounding like some crazy scientist with a Dance Mania addiction splicing Soundhack and Moodymann just for the hell of it. We’ve not heard a House record this deranged all year, kudos! Flip it and you’ll find the slightly more simmering vibes of ‘Nose Candy’… every bit the connoisseur’s wet dream.

Devon Eve

Montrealer, born and raised, Devon Eve is a disco boogie junkie with much love for the golden era of dance music.