NDATL 007 Robert Owens – Sacrifice (Kai Alcé Remixes)
Kai Alce’s NDATL imprint continues to demonstrate how deep house should sound, with the producer himself at the helm for a raft of remixes of “Sacrifice”, one of the tracks recorded by Robert Owens and Larry Heard for the former’s 2010 album Art. Supposedly inspired to rework the track after Heard stopped by the NDATL studio lab and played the track to Alce, the bespectacled producer drops no less than four variations across the twelve inch. The A Side has US remix and Dub variations, with Richard Corey’s deeply warm contributions on keys the perfect accompaniment to Owens’s delicate soulful tones on the US Remix. The way Alce tweaks those melodic elements for the Dub version are revelatory however, complementing the expansive vocal loops deftly. On the flip Brownswood contributor Simbad joins Alce on the buttons for a stripped back, slightly bruk UK variant that puts Owen’s vocal centre stage amidst the toasty analogue bass and subaqueous synth patterns – this is the Juno favourite!
Juno.co.uk Feb 2012