Dance Area – AA/24/7

‘AA 24/7′ is the fourth release from implausibly named danceparty hero Erol Alkan’s Phantasy Sound label.

Despite sounding like a Norwegian soft drink, he is the centrepiece of the hip London scene, which is probably even more fun that it sounds; especially as it makes anyone trying to write about you sound like their dad. Facing a slightly uncertain clubbing future due to central London’s club scene swiftly being dismantled to allow commuters to get a slightly faster train through our great city, he has begun to focus increasingly on producing the beats instead of pouring them onto the dancefloor like gooey funkbutter.

Before working on last year’s almost but sadly not brilliant Late of the Pier’s album, his most well known non-remix work was probably The Long Blondes‘ sophomore effort, Couples. Whether that record was ruined by Erøl Ã…lkãn’s over zealous knob-twiddling or by a simple paucity of song ideas remains open for debate, but I would argue he still currently lies somewhere between the great producers (Nigel Godrich/Brian Eno/Steve Albini) and the celebrity ones (Mark Ronson/Bernard Butler/Mick Jones).

And so we come to the beneficiaries of his electronic wizardry: Dance Area are composed of two chaps with the awesome and much less fjord-like monikers of “Dirk Boogie” and “Mollono Van Bass” (weren’t they from The Hives?) and ‘AA 24/7′ is their pumping, humping dancevenue smasher, ready to suck the kids into a mindless orgy of leg-shaking and crotch-wiggling.

Only problem is it isn’t, really. It’s all a bit thin and doesn’t really go anywhere – sounds like something you might throw into a gradual build before something dropping something really big. It might be useful for a DJ, but on its own it feels like the extra bits of lego you got just in case you got hungry and ate some. Sure, it’s got shouty bits you can agree with (“Do it!” and “Always! Anytime! 24/7!”) but it’s really just a bit thin and, well, inconsequential.

My suggestion would be to ignore this and get your hands on the vastly superior Diplo remix, which really kills, primarily by taking very little of the track along with it to the afterlife – replacing most everything with a huge dirty house synth. I reckon that, especially with the closure of The End and the resulting dismantling of easy to get to cool indie/dance discos in central London, Ěŗǿł Āľķăń needs to get with someone with some real good ideas, and real soon.