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January 1st 1970.
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This four-track EP is the first "official" release from New Jersey's MikeQ, one of the unquestioned leaders of the current vogue-house scene, and follows in the wake of a slew of self-released tunes he's dropped over the past few years.
"Let It All Out" is also the second record on Kingdom's Fade to Mind imprint, informally the American brother / sister label of Night Slugs. Largely built upon raw, upfront drum sounds, recycled snippets of hip hop and R&B, and, most importantly, the ever-present "Ha!" drop (itself a repurposed Masters At Work sample), vogue house seemingly offered the sort of sound that tastemaking and blog-reading DJs would snap up with gusto.
Yet, for whatever reason, the expected vogue-house explosion hasn't really happened, and while a handful of non-ballroom producers and DJs (most coming from the world of bass music) have experimented with the genre, the music essentially continues to hum along in the underground.
This EP’s title track has been the closest thing to a vogue-house crossover anthem in 2011, but is undoubtedly still new to most of the electronic music world. Furthermore, the 2012 Version included here does change things up from the earlier mixes circulating on the web. The track keeps the potent “Ha!” drops front and center, but MikeQ switches up the drum patterns while adding in some jacking, ravey synth stabs. In this incarnation, ‘Let It All Out’ sounds better and more polished than than ever, and given the blown-out, ultra-raw sound MikeQ was offering up less than a year ago, this kind of growth is a very good thing. In fact, the entire EP displays that same polish.
Opening cut "The Master Blaster" is undoubtedly MikeQ's most accomplished work to date, a big-room house tune punctuated by sleek, angular synths that swiftly fly through the song. It's obvious that MikeQ has been taking production notes from the rest of the Fade To Mind crew, making these productions equally suitable for the basement, the ball, and the club. "The Ha Dub Rewerkd" is another potent and remarkably mature effort, as the producer delivers a near nine-minute track that liberally reformats Masters At Work's ‘The Ha Dance’ without losing steam or growing stagnant.