Wallace - Willow [CWPT]

Having initially directed his production energy to his own Tartan imprint, Wallace’s music quickly developed a cult following among record collectors and influential DJs such as Gilles Peterson, Optimo, Hunee and Ryan Elliott. Another follower has been CWPT founder Palms Trax, who, after releases on Studio Barnhus and Rhythm Section, picks up four sought-after tracks for the seventh release on the label, each showcasing Wallace's inimitable and enviable skills as an engineer and his readiness to stoke the kind of organic euphoria that DJs dream of igniting.

Amongst the curios, rarities and other finds that have peppered Palms Trax’s sets this past summer, it is lead track ‘Willow’ that has lifted whole club and festival dancefloors like few others. Scaling from a disco percussion loop, ‘Willow’ soon brings high-energy melodies and a captivating sense of something more ethereal, seemingly reinvigorating old tricks with thrilling new flavours: if you only throw your hands up for one culminating snare roll this year, we’re asking that it be for this one.

This refreshing intersection between flourish and function is felt even more acutely on ‘Breathe’, a contemporary electronic battle weapon whose arrangement of breaks and basslines fluctuates between weightless wonder and serious business. Laden with the detail and atmosphere of a vintage Chems or Leftfield cut, 'Breathe' exhales and then explodes all the skill and daydream of the most memorable 90s techno.

Wallace appears to be diving into the chillout room with the swampy rhythm of ‘Masada’, before demonstrating his slow-mo mettle, with a dash of Sergeant Pepper-style psychedelia creating a true density and hedonistic groove. In conclusion and conversely, ‘River Dancers’ maintains a subtle hypnosis at a similar pace with far less, employing simple timbres and a broken, innocent vocal inflection to conjure an open-eyed fantasy downstream of the EP’s previous peak-time marvels.