Rush Hour compiles Recloose's Early Works

Recloose – ‘Get There Tonight’

Amsterdam’s Rush Hour label continues its noble mission to dust down classic house and repackage it for contemporary eyes and ears with the release of a new Recloose compilation, Early Works.

Recloose is the production handle of Detroit’s Matt Chicoine, a mainstay of Carl Craig’s Planet E stable. Chicoine’s career was launched after he handed Craig a demo tape when working as – depending on who you ask – a sandwich shop assistant or a pizza delivery boy. Since then he has contributed not only to Planet E but also Sonar Kollektiv, Peacefrog and Eskimo, with an open-minded approach to music-making that touches on house, broken beat, jazz, techno, soul and dub.

Rush Hour’s Early Works set focusses, as its name suggests, on music made by Recloose in the first few years of his career – kicking off with tracks from his first two 12″s EPs for Planet E, This Is The Dining Room and Spelunking. In total you get seven previously released tracks and seven that have never before seen the light of day: ‘Maui’s Lament (Original Demo Mix)’, ‘Lagan’, ‘Antares’, ‘Land Of The Lost Dance’, ‘Flotsam’, ‘Crosstown’ and ‘Jetsam’.

Though rightly hallowed among older heads, Recloose’s body of work is perhaps less familiar to younger listeners, and this beautifully presented CD (artwork above) should help address that injustice. As well as the CD, there are four digital-only tracks being made available (‘Kapiti Dream’, ‘Ghost Stories’, ‘Processions’ and ‘Ain’t Changing’); and eight of the tracks from the CD are also available on vinyl spread across two 12″s, Early Works Sampler 1/2 and Early Works Sampler 2/2. More info and sound clips here.

Early Works CD tracklist:
1. Get There Tonight
2. Soul Clap 2000
3. MYM 230 (RIP)
4. Insomnia In Dub
5. First Off (Dub Version)
6. Maui’s Lament (Original Demo mix)
7. Lagan
8. Antares
9. Land Of The Lost Dance
10. Flotsam
11. Absence Of One
12. Can’t Take It (feat Dwele)
13. Crosstown
14. Jetsam