Jason Grove Skylax

Listening back, "Interlude" will feel like the perfect opening to "Skylax". A jazzy encore crawls in, morphing into a skippy hip-hop instrumental with Jason's signature flourishes all over it. Aptly named as it is, this is the breathing space between whatever came before in your day, and the eleven deep house gems that are to follow. Speaking of, "The Love" will have you gripped from the first bar. It glides the listener in, then subtly drops that signature, tightly-tuned bassline of Jason's and continues onto soulful vocals from there. "Old Dayz" touches on a bit of a nostalgic note. The spoken vox cuts harken back to 90s hip-hop joints, playing over a looped Latin sample-led beat. From there, "Rawkicks 2" shows Jason's rough and ready sampling style in action. A seemingly simple track, but one which has that special something which guarantees to keep people on the floor moving for its duration. "Cut B" contrasts this nicely, being a much cleaner production with tight drum programming and synth work. That said, it still has the classic JG atmosphere we love. Closing out the first half of the album, "Definition" slows the pace ever so slightly, with its eternal pad structure that builds up the track's momentum into something very mellow and deep.