Four Candles (aka Kris Brown) has been a busy boy of late. For it seems whilst most of us were busy renovating homes or purchasing unnecessary items on the internet over the last couple of years, the Keep Thinking chief had his eyes firmly fixed on generating dancefloor weapons ready for our return to the clubs. By the back end of 2020, his chunky progressive sound was already picking up admiring glances from none other than Nick Muir and soon underground luminary John Digweed had taken note and featured ‘Devious’ as the 4am head-melter track across his stunning Live In London mix, recorded at Fabric.
Fast forward to 2022 and ‘Devious’, having received a robust road testing on Digweed’s extensive touring schedule, finally comes out on his Bedrock imprint. Judging by the pandemonium it has been creating on dancefloors, it is easy to see why the label were so keen to sign this one. The track, a relentless slice of menacing progressive house, revolves around an utterly mangled vocal line and an ever-rising……well riser. It is one of those gems that builds and builds the momentum then – after an epic tease – lets loose in the best way possible. The track traces back through the lineage of Four Candles productions but turns everything up to eleven for maximum impact. An absolutely wild ride; it’s big bold house music designed to sound thunderous on a loud system and shake those bass cones with its immense low end.
Next up comes ‘80808’, similarly sharply produced this time the trick is in the ever looping vocal refrain which plays tricks with your mind as it weaves in and out of the sonic spectrum in all manner of weird and wonderful ways. Think Underworld’s Cowgirl put through the Bedrock production mangle and fast-forwarded to 2022 and you are on the right lines. Superb. The whole EP harks back to the halcyon days of progressive house but is full of modern-day production trickery and gloriously inventive sound design. Both tracks are the type of no-nonsense dancefloor destroyers we all dreamt about during our time away from the rave. With that in mind, expect ‘Devious’ and the Four Candles sound to be illuminating dancefloors this summer and beyond.
