We've been going on and on about these tunes for quite some time now and we're more than excited to see Off The Traxx and Conqueror finally out there, hitting the shelves, after getting a decent number of months' worth of heavy rotation from the likes of Loefah, Oneman, Pearson Sound, Gilles Peterson, Addison Groove, Boddika, Jackmaster or Moxie, to name just a few of the ones who played it before anyone else. But leaving all the hype and PR work aside, truth is this release is one of the few to actually try and restore a lost standard for dance music in a sort-of pretentious era. Warehouse rave feel and chills down the spine included.
So, one record, two sides, each acting as a debut for two brand new monikers from Mensah & Redlight - New York Transit Authority, respectively Conqueror; guises they probably came up with while having a quiet cup of tea, dusting their old 808s.
Off The Traxx finds Mensah obsessing over the New York City Subway network and cross-referencing it with the US House giant while connecting one of the biggest 808 riddims of this year with a catchy vocal sample and laying it all on a spacious broken Techno-ish 125 bpm structure. Give this one a room with a properly rigged soundsystem and it will fucking demolish it! No doubt there. Full on "back-to-the-roots" take on drum-machine usage that seems to be backed by more reason than anything out there at the moment (including what Boddika and Bashmore are building).
The flipside finds Redlight on a "from bad to outstanding" roll. We have to be honest for a second here and admit we never were huge fans of his works as Redlight or Clipz. We always found his tracks somewhat "flashy" and pleasing for audiences we never really thought well of. Not anymore! Under his Conqueror quise he managed to finally make us come to terms with believing he is indeed a great producer. Rocking the same bpm area as Mensah on the flip, Conqueror aims for the same effect on the crowds but follows a slightly different recipe for building mental rave anthems, mainly focused on more echoed / filtered-out drum machine rolls and synthed stabs. And we think it works just fine!
New York Transit Authority - Off The Traxx / Conqueror - Highest Order
Add everything up along with the fact that this comes only in the form of a limited 12" in a badass sleeve, with no digitals available and it should be enough for you to believe that it could very well become a future classic, getting plays all over the place, both now and in 5 to 10 years' time. Definitely not the tool to impress the girl standing by the bar, but it should transform everything around her in a fucking sweatbox. Tip!
Cop the vinyl via Redeye and all the other good record stores out there, but be quick! It will evaporate pretty soon! We warned you.
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