Review
Genre and Mood
Clyde P made Blow for CUFF, a label Mixmag described in 2015 as hard-hitting and built on a G-house sound, house music borrowing from hip-hop. Beatport files the track under indie dance on the original EP and under deep house on the label’s best-of. Groovy and hypnotic are the feelings named here, a reading of a long, steady club track rather than a critic’s words.
Song Summary
Blow is the third and last track of Sleep And Fuck, a three-track EP that CUFF released on 20 October 2014 as CUFF013, and at six minutes and forty-one seconds it is the longest. Clyde P is credited as its only producer and composer. Beatport lists it at 122 beats per minute in E minor. The one description of its sound comes from a profile on Viberate, which calls it a standout with a pulsing bassline.
Musical Breakdown
No review walks through Blow section by section, so the parts below are listening prompts, not a map of the track.
Intro
Listen for how the track sets up its groove and how long it takes before the bass arrives.
Main Section
The pulsing bassline is the engine. Listen for how it carries more than six minutes without verses or choruses.
Outro
A track made for DJs usually ends as plainly as it begins, so it can be mixed into the next. Listen for how Blow lets go.
Concepts in Focus
A bassline is the repeated low line a house track leans on, and in club music it often matters more than any melody, because the dancefloor feels it before it hears it. In Blow it is the one element a written source singles out. Compare how the bassline in KlangKuenstler – Man On the Moon (Miguel Campbell Remix) keeps pushing forward under a voice.
The track also had a second life inside a dj mix. In December 2015 CUFF released Amine Edge & DANCE Present FFUC, Vol. 2 (The Best of CUFF 2015), and Blow is on it. A label’s best-of mix works as a statement of taste: these are the records that defined our year.
Artistic Context
Clyde P is a Parisian producer who, according to his biography on Desert Hearts, came from the hip-hop scene before turning to electronic music. After an EP called Purple Feeling on Nastyfunk, supported by Claude VonStroke and Etienne de Crécy, he joined CUFF. The same biography says the Sleep & Fuck EP came out in October after a summer residency at Sankeys Ibiza, and predicted that Blow would be one of its hits. Mixmag’s 2015 cover mix by Amine Edge & DANCE opened with Rollin’, the EP’s second track, praised as a perfect G-house record with a G-funk lead.
Impact and Reception
Toolroom later called Clyde P one of France’s best-kept secrets, with releases on labels from Sola to Armada. Blow has no reviews of its own, but CUFF chose it for its best-of a year after release. Play it loud enough to feel the bass.
