Having honed his craft across a set of EPs and albums (all remarkably released within 1996), DJ and producer Matthew Herbert solidified his reputation as one of electronic music’s greatest conceptual artists with 1998’s Around The House. Largely made from tones you’re likely to hear in the home; the clinking of glasses, the scraping of cutlery, the spray of an aerosol can. The humbleness of its musical raw materials belies the fact that it’s Herbert’s first great masterpiece.
A domestic scene is set from the off, as the listener is beckoned into the record by an apartment door buzzer and the sultry vocal of Dani Siciliano, who imbues the remainder of Around The House with a jazz sophistication. As it happens, the loft analogy is appropriate, given the funk and disco reference points in the liquid bass groove of ‘So Now?’ and ‘Close To Me’. Microhouse scrapes and scratches field the classy dance mood with a Detroit-style buoyancy, as the subtle rhythmic elements mingle and flirt with one another on charming cuts like ‘We Still Have (The Music)’ and ‘Going Around’.
Around The House is a cordial invitation to a house party, where Herbert is both esteemed host and house band.
