Axel Boman – Le New Life
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Axel Boman – Le New Life
Holdrons Arcade
135A Rye Lane
Unit 11 Holdrons Arcade
London SE15 4ST
United Kingdom
Label: Mule Musiq – MULE MUSIQ 244
Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP
Country: Germany
Released: Sep 6, 2019
Genre: Electronic
Style: Deep House, Balearic
The final release in Mule Musiq’s 15th anniversary series, which saw twelve 12" records made with friends of the label and collectable artwork by Stefan Marx, comes from Swedish producer Axel Boman. Le New Life is deeply rooted in house music, but it keeps slipping sideways out of functional club logic into something more dreamlike and psychologically strange. Where much deep house builds atmosphere through smoothness and control, Boman does almost the opposite: the grooves wobble, melodies drift in and out of focus and some synth sounds feel awkwardly overexpressive, almost naïve. He amplifies those qualities until they become the emotional language of the record, and the music feels lived-in rather than designed.
Chestnut Heartsprite is a super emotional, beatless club banger, as played at his recent Boiler Room, and it turns the guitar riff of Sister Sledge’s Thinking Of You into an endless, hypnotic loop across thirteen minutes. Slave To The Vibe is a slow-motion cosmic tune, Paid By The Rhythm is his signature floating house, and Copacabana Dub is an epic Brazilian deep house anthem, a tropical burner with loose percussion and a fat, simple bassline. Don’t Bug Me is dubby and rasta-inflected, and Konoba Boba recalls the early Border Community sound. Beneath the apparent softness there is plenty of detail, with percussion that mutates quietly and basslines that breathe, and the whole record sits in the overlap between melancholy and euphoria, like happiness remembered from a distance. A grower, and dance music for emotionally confused mornings.
