aaamusic | On 29, Nov 2010

The Phantom aka 23 year old Bartosz Kruczynski from Warsaw released his debut EP showing a sound built around a rhythmic template that shapeshifts somewhere between skeletal UK Funky, speaker shaking R&B and deep house wired up to glacial synths and deep, deep sub bass.

Night Game opens the EP, it is inspired by 90s R&B and mixes synthetic  marimbas, metallic drums and a echoing voice distorted with the megaphone, reminding a little bit the Gotan Project. All the rest is very different, we are in the territories of house music with dark and minimal tapestry that lead to tribal sounds.

Connect the dots is based on a repeated drum line with several synths creating a rich arrangement  accompanied by the same distorted female voice enlightened by flash of synthetic sounds.

Girl, the last track, is clearly a 90s song for its sounds, the piano on the background and the base repeated for two minutes after which the usual female voice recites some sentences .

Remixes are made by some of the best bass producers: Brenmar rewires ‘Girl’ with an insistent juke style clap, splices in some new vocals and lays down some seriously crisp drum work. UK house hero Hackman gets his Bladerunner strings on for a deep reimagining of ‘Night Game’ , Finally Phantom’s Polish pal Zeppy Zep turns in a completely epic remix of ‘Night Game’ switching up somewhere in the middle from brooding Zomby style digi-garage to carnival house.

The Phantom’s work is not very original, his music sounds a bit old, remixes could be successful in a disco, but original versions are good to be background music in some smokey clubs.

Author: Roberta Capuano