Stevie Cox - Expansion EP (Optimo Music)

 

Title: Expansion EP

Artist: Stevie Cox

Label: Optimo Music

Cat Number: OMDD55

Genre: Multi Functional

1: Expansion

2: Slinky

3: The Golden Ratio (With Fossil Archive)

Or, to give it its full title, ‘Optimo Music Digital Danceforce 55-Stevie Cox-Expansion EP’. Both ‘Expansion’ and ‘Slinky’ were “made in one sitting after a really good Subculture night when I was feeling really inspired”. And this can be felt in the way the tracks, particularly ‘Expansion’ get the better of the artist. There is a real feel of spontaneity to ‘Expansion’, which threatens to veer wholesale into euro trance land, but emerges with its reputation intact, partly down to the enthusiasm it elicits, although ‘Slinky’ is the star of this particular show. It’s a piece of deep, stellar acid, the layers of which I’m still unpeeling. A fantastic piece of work that does everything right. What makes a good acid – inflected tune is restraint, and ‘Slinky’ has so much of it you wouldn’t mind if it was twice its length. ‘The Golden Ratio (With Fossil Archive)’ is the type of soaring drum and bass where the synths and added sonic embroidery carry the track every bit as much as the driving percussion. Definitely not a release to be easily pigeonholed, but one that shows off Stevie Cox’s undoubted versatility and preternatural understanding of the dance floor.