Alerting the LP masses to what the EP crowd already knows, Domino Records'
All in All rounds up all the early EPs from
Bob Moses, the Brooklyn house music duo who create serene, wistful, and intoxicating post-club numbers. This chilled and well-designed beauty sounds like
James Blake,
Trentemøller, the first
New Order album, and the classic Basic Channel label slowly merged into one. There's a "band" element as well, as member Jimmy Vallance is the man behind all the blissful music, while Tom Howie handles the subdued and set-back-in-the-mix vocals. "Interloper" is the album's most "up" track, thanks to some
Kraftwerk-styled runs and riffs, and on the other side of the spectrum, there's "Stealing Fire," a slow and almost beatless song with echoing guitar. The duo thrive in this narrow world, and create many different flavors, with low BPMs and delicate melodies the only constant, and in the case of late-album highlight "I Ain't Gonna Be the First to Cry," they may have invented the genre of blues-house with Howie delivering the grief and Vallance in full, slinky support. Every groove is allowed to develop and grow as the seven-minute mark is repeatedly crossed, and if there's a complaint to be made, it's that the compilation puts the acoustic mix of "Hands to Hold" right next to the regular, since that's the way it was on the original -- and DJ-aimed -- EP. It's nothing a mouse click or flick of the shuffle button can't fix, and with
All in All saving you the trouble of searching out the four EPs, newcomers should consider this a welcome release. ~ David Jeffries