Creative Spaces

Fast becoming synonymous with quality tech-disco, Inland Knights might be mistaken for Franco purists. But throughout Creative Spaces, Britain's Laurence Ritchie and Andy Riley take what used to be fresh and interesting about Parisian house — that is the combination of basic 4/4 beats and an adolescent regression into pre-STD festivities — and attach all sorts of gambrels and spires and turrets to its exterior to test the strength of the foundation. Early cut "Ready" sets the tone, as an non-elaborate baby-jazz bassline, sedated vocals, and vintage beats explode with the complexity only an IDM or tech aesthete could muster out of his bulge of sound effects. For "At Last," there's the slightest hint of a breakbeat, phased in and out of a production as thick as Deep Dish and layered enough for one of the Talkin' Loud crowd. And Inland Knights pull it off, more often than not. In fact, even though Creative Spaces arrived at a time when French disco was about five years past its sell-by, Ritchie and Riley tweaked the genre enough to help you forget that it was struggling on its every last platitude.