A1 City 2 City, Star 2 Star
A2 Am I Tripping
B1 Love Life
B2 4 Snowflakes On Her Lips
B3 City 2 City, Star 2 Star (Reprise)
Two of Russian electronic music’s rising stars, Phil Gerus and Alexander Lay-Far,
invite you to join them at the Solitary High Social Club. While table service is
provided, they’d much rather you throw caution to the wind and head to the
dancefloor.
Before joining forces in the studio, both Moscow-based musicians have
delivered a string of memorable solo productions. Lay-Far has previously
released a wealth of material on such labels as Local Talk, City Fly, Lazy Days
and 4Lux Black, while synthesizer fetishist Gerus has showcased his electrofunk
and disco-fired cuts on Futureboogie Recordings, Sonar Kollektiv, Public Release
and Superior Elevation Records.
The five tracks that make up Solitary High Social Club deliver a perfect marriage
of the two producers’ distinctive solo styles, combining the rich musicality of
Lay-Far’s house productions with the spacey, intergalactic electronics of Gerus’s
discoid adventures. In many ways, it’s a marriage made in heaven – or in LayFar’s
celebrated In-Beat-Ween Studio, at least.
The duo’s spacey and melodious musical fusion is arguably best exemplified
by lead cut “City 2 City, Star 2 Star”, a widescreen, mid-tempo disco epic rich in
tactile Rhodes riffs, supernova synth solos, delay-laden drum beats, tumbling
melody lines and heavy analogue bass. Fittingly, the track returns in “Reprise”
form – think sweeping, weightless ambient bliss – to round off the EP.
Elsewhere, the duo provides further proof of their combined musical talents.
Check, for example, the gentle drum machine electro beats, cascading new age
melodies and sparkling, stretched-out synthesizer chords of the impeccably
beautiful “Am I Tripping”, or the devilishly percussive, mind-altering brilliance of
“Love Life”, where mutant electro bass, wide-eyed chords and alien melodies
rise above a heavy, Afro-influenced groove.
As for “Snowflakes On Her Lips”, you’ll struggle to find a more confident and
positive dancefloor workout all year. Blessed with killer piano parts, darting
analogue synth-bass and a range of disco-tinged musical flourishes, it’s by far
and away the most celebratory moment on an already happy-go-lucky EP. It
confirms, too, our initial hunch: at the Solitary High Social Club, life is always
good.
A1 City 2 City, Star 2 Star
A2 Am I Tripping
B1 Love Life
B2 4 Snowflakes On Her Lips
B3 City 2 City, Star 2 Star (Reprise)