The Holy Father of deep house returns with his 5th Mr. Fingers album since 1989, playing it properly down and loungey for intimate soirées and armchair immersion

Smoothing the cracks in your life, Larry Heard dons his Mr. Fingers wig for 10 pearlescent examples of his jazz-taught, soul-infused brand of house depth. With absolutely no sharp edges to snag on, the whole thing purrs and seduces with a classic appeal strongly accentuated by its (as yet undisclosed) debonaire vocalists, with each tracks sounding like it was left to marinade and simmer on a low heat for years to let its juices really thicken and enrich the flavour. Being a bunch of weirdos, we’re naturally leaning to those cuts where Fingers’ odder jakbeat heritage bleeds thru, as on the byzantine acid sequence of ‘Pressureize’ and the lip-smackingly subtle shimmy of lissom guitars and slinky offbeats in ‘Marrakesh’, while festive romantics will get theirs everywhere else, from the dawning bliss of ‘Around the Sun’ thru the almost New Order-esque strut of ‘Drive’, to its crooning yacht-soul highlight ‘Touch The Sky’, and buoyant beauty of ‘Electrostatic Levitation’, with a classy riff on Marvin Gaye in ’Somethgin’s Going On’ and the effervescent FM synthesis of ’Shimmer’ tying it off in a ribbon bow.