Glenn Astro - Chemistry EP

Currently residing in Essen, Glenn Astro has spent a bit more than half his life DJing and producing, first in the realm of hip-hop and more recently with an ear toward dance music. After his first releases in this style in 2011 and 2012, Glenn really went for it in 2013 with a trio of EPs that showed hip-hop's soul and house music's drive are in no way mutually exclusive. This 26-year-old may embrace the latter these days, but when you close your eyes and let his gritty low-end do its dirty work, you'll hear plenty of the former's bump still kicking around in there.

His first EP of 2014 is a case in point: Tartelet hits catalog number 27 with gritty soul music for 120-BPM dance floors. "Love Jones" starts things off by taking its time, letting the beat ease in at the halfway mark while Glenn's sumptuous chords simmer in stereo. CTEPEO '57, whose The Missouri Breaks EP closed out Tartelet's 2013, doesn't so much remix "Love Jones" as pick up where the original left off, its banged-out piano chords and tropical shuffle coming out of nowhere in the best possible way.

On the flip, "Acid Tears" throws a bit of Chicago into rattling drums, cosmic saxophones and some wonderfully warped spoken word. On its counterpart "Dub Tears," plaintive strings and searing cymbals fly high over wide, low, rumbling terrain.

Glenn Astro's given us a whole lot of groove here—we invite you to have at it, and whet your appetite for his debut full-length due in 2015