Various Artists – Body Language Vol. 7 Mixed By Matthew Dear (Get Physical / Inertia)

In the wake of recent preceding volumes from Chateau Flight and Junior Boys, this seventh volume in Get Physical’s ongoing ‘Body Language’ mix series sees Matthew Dear drawing together an expansive 20 track selection over 75 minutes. In comparison to his more dark technoid and minimal-oriented recent outings as alter-egos Audion and False respectively however, ‘Body Language 7’ sees him leaning towards decidedly lush dancefloor tracks, with the unmistakeable taint of house present amongst virtually all of the tracks here. That said, Dear teases the listener at first with almost 12 minutes of atmospheric build-up, with the delicate flickering textures of Dinamoe’s opening ‘The Green French One’ seguing beautifully into the almost LCD Soundsystem-esque blues-y grooves of Kalabrese’s ‘Cityblues.’ Before long however, Dear’s pretty much got the set in full swing with Radio Slave’s stripped-back reworking of Mille Caro & Franck Garcia’s ‘Dead Souls’ nicely melding into similarly upfront tech-house offerings from DJ Koze, I:Cube and Soulphiction. Perhaps most curiously, it’s a mix that’s virtually absent of Dear’s own productions and re-edits, apart from exclusive unreleased track ‘Free To Ask’, which sees him reprising the midtempo vocal electro-soul seen on his ‘Asa Breed’ album under his own name for Ghostly International. A strong mix from Matthew Dear that sees his pushing the button marked ‘house’, and one that’s sure to please the Get Physical fanbase.