Premiere: John Randle - The Hammer [Carton-Pâte Records]
Christmas came a bit early over here at LAMP as we started to receive some awesome promos to close out our year. One in particular landed in our inbox from our buds in Grenoble and their eclectic electronic music label known as Carton-Pâte Records. In keeping with their tradition the French label had recently compiled their latest installment of The Christmas Gift Part IV LP, featuring a host of the usual cohorts involved with the imprint, as well as a few newcomers. There were definitely several solid tracks from the collection but one in particular by John Randle called 'The Hammer' definitely caught my ear.
John Randle - The Hammer
The track opens up with a familiar and welcoming arrangement of crisp hats, quick snare hits and punchy kick that embody a jackin' house tune. There's also this really nice metallic tom hit that comes in on the off-beat of the last bar of that 4 bar drum loop that helps provide a subtle transition during the intro and other parts of the composition. In particular it helps to introduce a really nice airy pad that leads into the first main breakdown of the track along with the track's lead vocal sample. The origin of the sample escapes me, but regardless Randle does a great job of breaking it apart and chopping it to supplement the song's catchy rhythm. He also reserves the poignant "all I ask for" lyrics for those transitory moments during the arrangement shift effectively. My favorite part of the track is the bass line, with it's bouncy, deep grooving nature as it modulates the cutoff and resonance from soft muted single notes to something a bit sharper during the chord's run. As the song progresses a very cool, delayed 808 cowbell carries us into the main breakdown full of fun FX'd pads, snappy clap hits, and arpeggiated synths that round out a really great track. Definitely a great track to throw in for those house and UK Bass sets to get people grooving.Hailing from Birmingham, John Randle has built a steady discography of work over the past few years ranging from classic house to thick and heavy UK Bass and Grime. Elements of the latter certainly shine in 'The Hammer' but also permeate into a lot of his drum work for several other tracks he's put out recently. Labels like Hustler Traxx and House of Hustle have already noticed the young producers work while our buds over at Spira Records have also added to his growing supporting cast of imprints. Thanks to our friends at Carton-Pâte he's now on our radar and we look forward to hearing more from him soon. Check out more from John Randle below:The official release of the Christmas compilation is December 25th so our playlist below will continue to update over the next few days.
Christmas Gift LP IV - Carton-Pâte Records
Enjoy and Happy Holidays,MR PUZL