Aroy Dee - Sketches (2014)

After more than a decade of releasing raw and emotional house music, Dutch producer and architect Aroy Dee is about to drop his debut album on his own M>O>S label.

Aroy Dee was on the receiving end of excitement in recent months thanks to his club owning remix of Design a Wave track on '#####' released via Rush Hour's No Label series. Aside from that cheeky release and his membership of R-A-G, the man has established himself as someone who creates misty analogue music that nods to a Chicago heyday at the same time as coming imbued with plenty of its own deep emotions, mystic melodies and jacking beats.

His M>O>S label has become a go-to outlet for fans of no nonsense house and that tradition continues on this full-length album. Incidentally, M>O>S stands for Muziek Over Steden – Dutch for ‘music about cities’ – because Dee has a close tie to buildings: during the day he works as an architect so has an unrivalled grasp of space, structure and urban environments that surely translates into his well built house music, and more specifically into this debut album. Made with the same hardware that defines the rest of his discography, including his first synth, the Poly 800, which he bought from his friend NWAQ, Sketches is a truly idiosyncratic project.

Says Aroy… “For me, my musical output and development feels like an on going history of my life. In this perspective I worked steadily over the last two years on my first full-length album, Sketches. It’s a very personal document, not intended to make anybody happy but myself, which is why it has taken so long. It’s like a diary or ghost-script written about a part of my life and my fascinations, honoring my biggest musical inspirations.”

Sketches has been made for home listening, thereby resisting the ever-changing trends of the dance floor. The album sets a continuous mood that slowly intensifies, evolves and unfolds, taking you through new sounds and scenes in coherent and considered ways. Opening with the blissful ambiance of ‘Night Sky’ it slowly roams through stretched out, atmospheric deep house on ‘Pure’, lazy electro on ‘Decay’ and sombre future city scapes on ‘Descent’.

‘City Of Others’ begins to jack and whip around more energetically but retains a serene sense of soul thanks to the smooth and seductive synths. The second half of the album picks up the pace a little, with icy hi hats, prickly basslines and careful percussive cacophonies jamming around the ever present synth patterns Dee so expertly paints.

A self contained work that combines that distinct Aroy Dee sound we know and love with the proper narrative arc any good album requires, Sketches has been a long time coming but proves most certainly worth the wait.