Larry Jefferson – ‘When That Day Comes’ EP

Fresh out on 12-3 Recordings is Larry Jefferson’s ‘When That Day Comes’ EP, which includes three intoxicating tracks from his amusingly titled and brilliant acid house project, ‘Space Missions Are Lame Now’.

Those who aren’t already familiar with Larry might be forgiven for assuming he was from Chicago or Detroit, or at least somewhere in America with a proud electronic music heritage. But one look at the track list for this EP indicates that he hails from somewhere about as far removed from The Windy City as it’s possible to be – the humble seaside town of Whitby on England’s North East coast. Although, come to think of it, Whitby is pretty darn windy at times.

Perhaps it’s that classic American name, Larry, that would have us fooled. More likely, though, its the surname, which immediately calls to mind a certain Marshall Jefferson; some say “the father of house music”, who first introduced the drum machine to the piano (or was it the other way around?) when he wrote ‘Move Your Body’ for Trax Records, owned by… wait a minute… Larry Sherman.

Forgive me if I’m wrong, Larry, and this is in fact your real name (if so then kudos ’cause it’s a pretty chuffing cool one) but I’m swiftly beginning to think that it might actually be an ingenious moniker, possibly adopted in dedication to a Chicago legend or two? Not least because this EP unites house music and piano in a way of which I’m sure they’d approve. And it’s not only the piano that harks back to the roots of this genre – the electronic elements are crafted using pretty much the same instruments that Marshall had to hand back in 1986, too.

Nevertheless, Larry has used Roland’s most famous pieces to create something entirely different. The sounds are all familiar, but they’re bolder than ever, and the the sum of their parts is vivid and new. I sat up and paid attention to this EP, initially, because the title track sounded something akin to the best interpretation of Orbital’s ‘Chime’ I’d ever heard. The sustained piano keys are nothing short of epic and the 303 line is just ruthless – it’s either dripping more acid than that bad guy from Robocop or pulling your woofers from their cabinet in the smoothest possible way, demonstrating that, in the right hands, it isn’t so bad at basslines after all.

12-3 Recordings says that they’re “unbelievably proud and extremely fortunate to be able to release music of this caliber” and I can certainly see why.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/11415744″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]