review: v.a. – our summer ep

Matt Tolfrey’s Leftroom imprint provides a heavyweight V/A release to close of the summer, with contributions from Huxley, Pezzner, Jack Dixon, Coat of Arms, Jaimer Vincentie and Tolfrey alongside Sam Russo.

Kicking off with Huxley’s sleek, arp-driven ‘Failing Upwards’ before sliding neatly onto the subtle, punchy and melodic ‘Creature of Habit from Tolfrey & Russo, ‘Our Summer’ is, from the off, riddled with Leftroom flair. Pezzner is at his trippiest with the low-slung funk of ‘Need More’, which stands out as some of his best work yet (no mean feat for the veteran producer) while ManMakeMusic/Apollo star Jack Dixon makes his Leftroom debut with the unctuous, rounded warmth of modern garage cut ‘Spin Drive’. Coat of Arms delivers the penultimate cut in ‘One For the Rhodes’, an idiosyncratic piece of deep, skeletal funk that joyfully rattles while drawing on a cornucopia of sounds before another Leftroom debutant, Jaimer Vincentie, closes things off with the lurching house groove of ‘True Skool’.