David Penn – ‘Different Story’ EP

Spanish producer David Penn returns to Toolroom Records with a release featuring three remixes of his original piece – ‘Different Story’.

If the hook sounds familiar, it did to us too. We spent a good ten minutes trying to place it. The vocal is a sample of Candi Staton’s ‘I Know’, the B-side to soul the 1976 classic ‘Young Hearts Run Free’. It was used by Altern 8’s ‘Infiltrate 202’ and ‘You Gonna Want Me’ by Tiga but the version we were most familiar with was last year’s Alexis Raphael hit ‘I Know’.

What’s on offer from the ‘Different Story’ EP is an altogether distinct take however. A roving tech house stomper with a ghostly vocal that floats over the pulsing bass, it drives the track through the mix without ever losing focus.

Next up is veteran producer D. Ramirez’s ‘Fully Analog’ mix. The bassline is a bang on trend, deep house bouncer but seems to borrow heavily from the Pleasurekraft edit of Bontan’s remix of ‘I Got A Feeling’ without sharing the sincerity that made the remix to the Josh Butler track so appealing. Unfortunately it does struggle to emerge from the shadow of one of the most popular deep house tracks of 2013 which is a shame because the tune in itself is lively and pretty damn catchy.

The second remix artist is Simon Doty who weighs in with track 3 and shifts the direction of the EP back to up and at ’em tech house. The vocal is more haunting on this version, being pitched down slightly. This blends well with the other elements of the track – plenty of white noise, a pitched up ‘Whoa’ on the first and a relentless bass roll.

Finally, the PACT remix is a curve ball that delivers a typical deep house lead and bass but briefly drops out to down and dirty garage bass. The fact that the garage bassline only features in about 8 bars of the whole track is outrageous as it’s eclipses any ingredient in the rest of the production, maybe even the EP. Aside from the garage drop out, the track is solid if unremarkable.

None of that takes anything away from the quality of Different Story EP. There’s a great mix of styles with something we’re sure everyone can get along with – the dirty, the pretty, the gritty, you name it. The pick of the bunch being David Penn’s original title track but could have quite easily been the PACT mix if the old school b-line was more prominent. Credit where credit’s due, the Simon Doty mix has an understated class about it and Dino Ramirez’s productions always command respect.

Different Story is out today via Toolroom, available on Beatport and well worth checking out.