The deep house master in session on his most substantial delivery since 2020; album length by most standards, and sparkling with signature gritty magick

Theo Parrish keeps it real as only he can with a battery of woodcut drums and locked-in vintage vibes on ‘Cornbread & Cowrie Shells for Bertha.’ His most generous offering since 2020’s ‘Wuddadji. It cycles between relatively succinct and properly in-depth joints where he really gets inside his thang. Those durational ones are big highlights; namely the singing timbales and writhing Afro-Latinate syncopation of organ and drums in ‘Cleo’s Theme’ that heads it off, practically going nowhere but making you dance a hole in the ‘floor, while ‘Dance Alone’ cuts inside its own furrow for 18 minutes of rugged but delicate developments of fender rhodes and layered rhythmelodic froth that will turn the club to a lather. More impatient DJs will get theirs in the ‘Dance of the Drunken Drums’ flex to the EP’s stumbling title zinger, the Ra-esque hustle of ‘Play Thru Moon’, intoxicating chord sequence of ‘Real Deal’ and that swaaaaang on ’Stop Lite.’ Ya dancer!