In the grand tradition of Mixpak Records’ unhinged eclecticism comes Obsession, the new EP from Milwaukee, Wisconsin producer Andy Petr. Petr is a musician with a scope and breadth that transcends easy classification. Connecting the dots between house music and J Dilla-esque beat construction with an HD scope, he unites the minute and the maximal without surrendering a certain melancholic emotional depth.
This EP sounds like an old-school NYC block party brought into the future, with the sounds of R&B, funk and electro-boogie refracted through the prism of garage, bass music and modern-day computer trickery. Title track “Obsession” is a widescreen, banging, dancefloor bomb sounding like classic French House captured with a slow-motion disco lens. “Ready” finds hard East Coast breaks colliding with cinematic sample chops reminiscent of DJ Premier or Pete Rock. At less than two minutes, it’s an idiosyncratic inclusion to an EP that’s already hard-to-define. Yet other cuts blend tweaked-out acid techno with intricate production flips, full of left turns but with the DJ at heart. The final track, “Heaven’s Voyeur,” is a truly spellbinding piece of ambient piano music that’s wise beyond its years… Unexpected, yet it makes perfect sense.
There is a certain emotion in Andy Petr’s music that makes him just as at home next to Flying Lotus and Nicholas Jaar as banging house legends like DJ Sneak and Thomas Bangalter. He possesses a textural complexity that is masterful but never at the expense of the feeling. The Obsession EP is a free spirit, a focused blend of the timeless and the futuristic. Not bad for a young producer not yet of legal drinking age.
