Two years ago, the Paris-based producer and DJ E00 released an EP called Do Not Visit The Club. It’s a cheeky title for this artist’s output of dreamy, driving, floor-stirring work—however, in 2020, it bears an entirely different reading. Today, we simply and definitively do not visit the club—the ethics of sharing sweat, spit and space have radically shifted. We miss it for the social effervescence, for the bullshit, most of all for the dancing—which begs the question: what does it mean to release dance music in this moment? To listen to tracks and dance in one’s kitchen is an act of memorial, and although a bit mournful, is also a kind of spiritual respiration: we need it. Rightfully so, E00’s drop on Radiant Love, coming out on the tail-end of this nightmarish year, is titled Peace & Tranquility.
The title track, which opens the release, starts off not with a bang but some kind of thrust: a low note felt in the gut, echoing and loopy chimes, and right away a drum pattern driving us forward. Over the next 8-plus minutes, some horizon-wide pads come into the mix, as well as a shuffling bass-line that speaks directly to the ass. Balancing the A-side is “Flexible Ground”—a downtempo ride awash in white noise and distended vocal samples that give a nod to Deep Forest. It’s a textured, complex sonic surface, with some particularly gorgeous processing of the drums—characteristic of E00, the hi-hat loop becomes a kind of expressive instrument that gets turned, tweaked, and filtered as the rest of the track rolls on.
“Biosphere” sets the B-side in motion with canopy birdcall and some ruminating pads; we get one bar of straight 4/4 kicks, and then the structure begins to play, evolve. Starting with those distinctive phase-shifted hi-hats, we work our way into a terrain of barking dogs, delicate piano lines, and even a clever drum-break so tastefully cloaked in reverb. Closing the EP is “Parade”, whose first minute and a half has all the makings of a low-tempo trance track: a punchy kick-drum marching along at 134 BPM, a dry clap and a hi-hat marking the off-beats. Before long, E00 pulls us back into the lush and syncopated world built up through the past three tracks. It’s hard to find a better word than ‘dreamy’—although we won’t simply be jolting awake from the terror of 2020, Peace & Tranquility is a welcome instance of lightness in this year. And I imagine it will be stirring up the dancefloors when we visit them once again.