Uffe - No!

“Uffe on “No!" is at one moment Herbie Hancock and the next Arthur Russell. It’s just fucking impressive!” Falty DL

A year after his dynamic debut “Radio Days”, Uffe resurfaces on Tartelet with a record cut in the same spirit as the last: aborderless approach to music-making with organic instrumentation at its heart. Genres collide peaceably – off-beat soul with jazz, hip-hop with the heft of house – and are melded smooth with an earthy warmth. Like nearly all at camp Tartelet, he's a producer who is more interested in cutting loose than playing to the tune of dominant modes in dance music. In that, his album's title is instructive: a “No!” to the tyranny of trends; to slavish Facebook likes; to creative compromise. Beyond the babble of fleeting fads, Uffe enjoys his place on the perimeter – an outlier searching critically for something closer to atimeless groove.

Uffe has all of the intuition of the self-taught instrumentalist, following his ear into unexpected rhythmic and tonalcombinations. It's what gives the album its urgent appeal: the sound of tentative experiments being made live; of sequences improvised amongst friends. Far from a churn of simple floor fodder, the album is a journey through a consummate narrative. Shy guitar interlude “Fridge Magnet Radio Theme” feels its way out of the warbling jazz breakdown in “Lesser Known Values”. “

The Fact”, an unexpected vocal ballad, follows the broken beat of “Solo, So Loud”. With the record's pleading closer “From Me”, it's a story with a start, middle, and end. A long player as long players should be.

As Tartelet continue their run of consistently solid EPs & 12"s, it's still these album moments that remain the best gateways into the label's distinctive sound. Alongside Max Graef's debut “Rivers of the Red Planet” and Glenn Astro's “Throwback”, Uffe's “No!” is a mirror to the Tartelet spirit and sits amongst the imprint's best. For lovers of the true album – the full-length proper; the one-take listen – this one's for you.