Blake Farfan - Contours

How is this guy not bigger? Contours is the kind of melodic house that should be soundtracking a car advert by now, and Blake Farfan keeps putting this stuff out to a fraction of the attention it deserves. It opens on a filtered arpeggio heard through a closed door, then the door swings open and a round, bouncing bassline walks in and takes the room over. The groove is deceptively simple, a handful of elements locked into a pocket so comfortable you stop noticing how little is actually happening. At 2:10 a new synth layer slides in over the top, a bright counter-melody that lifts the whole thing up a floor without changing the tempo, and that single addition is what turned a nice loop into a track I’ve replayed six times tonight. There’s a wordless vocal pad buried in the mix, warm and low, doing the job a topline would in a lesser version of this. It’s sophisticated without being cold, the rare dance track that works equally in a club and in a kitchen at breakfast. Farfan clearly has taste to burn and an allergy to overstuffing a track. I keep waiting for him to have the moment that drags this sound into daylight. On the evidence here, it’s overdue.

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