mark de clive-lowe: midnight snacks vol. 1
Francisco Espregueira
Mark de Clive-Lowe is a habitué around here. He is a man that has been sharing multiple vibes and styles, blessing us with a legendary discography, lately getting heavy into his jazz-bag with Heritage, Ronin Arkestra and Dreamweavers. Midnight Snacks Vol. 1, his latest offering via MashiBeats, marks his return to beats and basslines at the center of four instrumental tracks of broken beat, house and downtempo.
Midnight Snacks brings us electronic music with a jazz attitude. “Joyful Resistance Part I” MdCL kicks off things with a spiritual jazz piano giving way to a swaggy head-nod 3/4 hip hop excursion. “Blue Hour” bring us into sunrise-house territory with the producer’s signature harmony and piano leading the way over lush strings. Side B opens with “37,000 feet” - a soundtrack to flying high in the skies and the anticipation of going somewhere new with broken beat drums, rhodes and free-wheeling synths. Closing out the EP, “Thanks Given” is filled with this broken-boogie texture, with MdCL’s playful harmony and melodic flourishes oozing with uplifting goodness. Available on vinyl, via MashiBeats, Midnight Snacks Vol. 1 shows yet another example why Mark de Clive-Lowe is one of your favorite producer’s favorite producers.
“Midnight Snacks are moments in time created in the dead of night - as the world sleeps, I get to imagine alternate realities. Through our imagination, we find new ideas and new possibilities, and share them in the hopes that we remind each other how things don’t have to be any one particular way. There’s always another perspective.”