UK-based house producer Ali Gibbs has been releasing tracks under the Nebraska moniker since the late nineties, with an impressive backcatalogue of 12” releases on labels including Rush Hour and Player culminating in the release of his debut album ‘Mixed Up Music For Mixed Up People’ on Down Low in 2008. Three years on, this second album ‘Displacement’ collects together the batch of Eps he’s released on Rush Hour over the last two years, with the resulting twelve track collection leaning firmly towards warm disco and soul-infused atmospheres. Opening track ‘Soho Grand’ certainly sets the scene effectively as an opening flourish of percussion, trailing keys and sweeping synth-strings smoothly tightens up around an elastic funk-bass groove and flickering hi-hats for a smooth soul-house excursion that sits somewhere between Chez Damier and Silicone Soul.
By contrast, the gorgeous ‘You & I’ takes things off on a seven minute long glide through lush, shimmering synth drones and crisp, pneumatic tech-house rhythms that’s easily one of the most understated highlights here, male soul vocals reaching up through the glowing synth aftertrails towards the track’s conclusion. Elsewhere, ‘The Other Side’ changes the tempos up slightly, laying a stripped-back electro 808 groove beneath burbling analogue bass synths and curiously Marvin Gaye-esque male soul vocal loop, in an offering that veers perilously towards kitsch at points, before ‘The Cruives’ takes things off towards the horizon amidst fluid tech-house rhythms, rippling dubbed-out vocal textures and distantly rumbling sub-bass that recall one of Carl Craig’s more night-drive oriented excursions. While there’s the odd wander towards more anodyne, cafe-friendly disco-house atmospheres here (see ‘Time Has Come’), on the whole this is a strong album that should particularly appeal to the soulful house heads.
Chris Downton
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