Nu Breed: Global Underground [Audio CD] Tomiie, Satoshi

Nu Breed's latest recruit, Satoshi Tomiie, is the New-York-based Japanese producer who many years ago put the emotive keyboards in classic tracks like "Tears" by Frankie Knuckles. More recently he put the "Love" in "Traffic" on his own debut LP Full Lick, an LP which was informed by the NY-house sound (Tomiie has been part of Def Mix for many years now), but which also heralded the darker, more twisted progressive sound that the DJ/producer has taken up over the last couple of years. Given his veteran status on the electronic music scene, Satoshi seems a strange choice to be fronting the latest instalment of GU's Nu Breed series, but the blurb justifies it in terms of his recent musical shift (hmmmmm). A quick scan through the labels--Saw, Bedrock, Twisted, Distinctive, Forensic--shows that this comp fits snugly into the darker side of the current prog scene, and sure enough Tomiie takes us into a menacing maze of twisted sounds right from the off, spiralling back and forth through textured tunnels of tribal rhythm from the likes of Stephane K ("Numb"), Little Green Men ("These Are The Beats"), Kosheen ("Hungry"), Graffik ("Lesser Man"), Echomen ("Substance"). It's nothing wildly different from many comps out there, but it does hit the spot.--Paul Sullivan