Simon Doty – Dreamscape EP [Purified]

Simon Doty‘s highly anticipated debut on Nora en Pure’s Purified imprint is the ‘Dreamscape EP‘ 3-tracks. This perfect pairing is the happy accident of Doty being struck by Nora’s label and its output, and realising his ‘Dreamscape’ track had a natural home there. Nora took a whole 20 minutes to agree, and secure all three. Light suffuses the EP like the scent of early summer, when thoughts stray to outdoor raving and listening on a lounger by a pool.

Doty’s superpower is marrying usually contradictory sounds and genres to create deep melodic house you can both listen to alone and then dance to like a wild thing in packed clubs. The Canadian producer’s self-taught tech mastery is at the root of this ability, as is the spiritual beauty of his compositions – hence the battalion of industry luminaries who support him, and the labels who’ve claimed him, like Anjunadeep, in a succession of acclaimed EPs, most recently ‘Hometown’. 

Dreamscape is suitably dreamy, yet dancey. Shimmering beats, murmuring synth chords, and an ethereal vocal bringing lyrical heft – ‘I see colours drifting in the dreamscape of my mind’ – while scales of bubbling notes keep things bright. Airlift hooks with intriguingly irregular but fast drumbeat, before satisfying with distorted bass notes and a warmly rumbling reverb-laden melody. Vocal riffs fade in and out amid twangly high strings. Slow Wave has hypnotic vocal riffs and deceptively comforting synths, but underlined by a takes no prisoners thudding beat and pizzicato progressions keeping things fizzing. Slow Wave is one you can dance to, fast.