Reggie Dokes ‎– Once Again

In the last decade, Reggie Dokes has consistently released some of the best house music I’ve listened to. Every record of his screams of originality, mood and emotion and this, his fourth record on Clone and it’s many sublabels, is no different.

The A side kicks in with ‘Haiti’. Nothing but kicks, rimshots and splashed out rides, then slightly off beat, dirt ridden toms. A really nice piano lead line comes in followed swiftly by the left hand. A piano workout ensues on top of deep beats and when thebassline kicks in, it really gets this track gro0ving. Rhodes organ stabs play delicately over the top whilst this track contains its beef and its deepness.

A2 bring us ‘God of House’, another piano workout, albeit a lot slower and a lot more complex. A nice plucky bassline along with superb piano work really elevates this track and keeps you moving. Again, that Rhodes scurrys inbetween it’s layers and threads the whole thing together. This track is so playful, it sounds like Reggie is having a ball jamming his keys.

The final track ‘Once Again’, starts by sounding so far removed from the A side of this EP. A hard track at first, evolves into something else altogether. Slowly out of the depths that Rhodes creeps out once more, bringing with it more natural organ sounds and sharp synth stabs, slowly building into something akin to Octave One meets Moodyman.

After Reggie’s superb ‘Until Tomorrow EP’ on Clone’s Royal Oak series, I expected nothing less thansuperb from his latest output. Reggie seems to have delivered an EP with 3 very different tracks but keeps them all together by using the same sources and sounds whilst still maintaining that raw, deep emotion. It looks like this will be another good decade for Mr Dokes.

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