kiskadee, Jody Wisternoff & James Grant - Friendly Fire (feat. Ren Ocean)

There’s a bassline in Friendly Fire that walks in on the offbeat and just refuses to leave, and it’s the reason this Anjunadeep cut lodged in my head for a full afternoon. Jody Wisternoff and James Grant have been steering this label’s melodic-house sound for years — Wisternoff was making records before half the Anjunadeep roster was born — and pairing them with kiskadee and Ren Ocean’s vocal gives the track a human warmth the genre sometimes forgets to include. It’s deep house that actually moves rather than just shimmering prettily in place, the groove doing real work under all the atmosphere. Ren Ocean’s voice is smoky and low, sitting right in the pocket, and around 3:00 the arrangement opens up into a breakdown that’s all pads and space before the bassline saunters back in. It’s the sort of record that works at a dinner party and a warehouse with only the volume knob changing. I’ve listened three times and keep noticing new details tucked into the mix. Anjunadeep at its most reliable, which is a higher bar than the label gets credit for.

Buy / stream this track →