Craig Smith & The Revenge - CSRV 1

These are two finely honed classy, bassy, low bpm, pieces of deep house music that you can easily imagine sitting at the start of a palatable commercial mix, but at around eight minutes a piece they do seem a tad over-indulgent. Despite Smith's record as a producer of such slow grooves, the first reaction is "should this be about a third faster, or is it just me?" And with that grain of doubt you're left with a problem: the phenomenon commonly referred to as the John Peel Effect ("is that supposed to be 33.3 or 45?") isn't as easily debated with mp3 releases. However, even as it stands, fans of Smith's other works will no doubt relish the unrushed funk and flow of these well executed and desirable tracks. [Jack McFarlane]