- This one has "important" written all over it; not only is it Tiga's first original material since 2009 album Ciao!, but it's the 100th release for one of the past half-decade's most defining house imprints. "The Picture" appropriately enough cements the label's style into something (excuse the pun) picture-perfect and presentable, squeezing one of dance music's most colourful characters into the desaturated world of its warmed-over fleshtone chambers.
Tiga hasn't undergone a drastic makeover here; as it turns out, he's more sympathetic to Crosstown's deep house than you might think—earlier Sexor-era work is a key reference here. Case in point: the flipside is a remix of 2004's "Pleasure from the Bass" by UK producer Subb-an, and it's just about the most archetypal Crosstown production imaginable. The original's excitable fidget is flattened out into a throbbing, bass-heavy crawler, barked vocals nudging the groove along while the mechanical bassline flails with an antiseptic sterility. It's exactly the kind of thing that would merely float by in one of Subb-an's subtly catchy DJ sets.
The droll, dry pulse of "The Picture" is built around a similarly punch-drunk swirl. It's a perfectly capable mix of his electro work and the recent pounding techno of his Turbo label—the proof's in the stunning heart-in-mouth breakdown. Bridging the gap between past and present, it's reinforced with a hypnotically anesthetized bassline that slots it neatly alongside the work of artists like Maceo Plex. Of course, the Montrealer's ever-divisive vocals make an appearance, this time monotonously bleating lyrics from "When Doves Cry"—they don't add much other than torpor to the already sleepy melody, and hold it back from banging highlight to pleasant tension-builder.
Tracklist A The Picture
B Pleasure From The Bass (Subb-an Remix)