Please

DJ Plead drops a dead strong, fully romantic second album with 'Please' for Oslo's Smalltown Supersound, pursuing his 2020 debut 'Relentless Trills' with a properly sticky balance of dancehall swivel and spatio-textural tactility - a perfect high-summer breeze tipped FFO DJ Python, Lenky, Taymour, Muslimgauze, Art of Noise... For over a decade, Jarred Beeler aka DJ Plead has drawn on his Lebanese heritage in a unique catalogue of productions splicing microtonal flutes and keys wth dancehall and techno rhythms for the likes of Livity Sound, AD 93, and Air Max 97's Decisions. With 'Please' he picks up where his debut album 'Relentless Trills' left off in 2020 for our 'Documenting Sound' series, taking the long form canvas as an ideal place for him to ease off the club gas and open out ideas with a heightened sensuality and romantic pathos which works a treat on swaying bodies as much as rested minds. Four years since that last solo shot, the 'Quick EP' for Livity Sound in '22, and a plethora of collabs with TSVI, DJ Python, rRoxymore a.o., Plead emerges amid fellow auteurs - Actress, Barker, Jamal Moss - on Oslo's long-running Smalltown Supersound with increased confidence in his own sound. It's palpable in his sparing strokes of melody and unhurried pacing, coupled with a tender feel for weightless structures that are just as happy to shrug off the beats and get lost in their own thoughts as he gently grips the hips for an eyes-down shuffle. The mah-ragga-nat single 'Ride TV' is a perfect example of his rudely atmospheric tekkerz, and about as hard as it gets, whilst elsewhere he really gives it up in lushest, hair-kissing style. His feel for richly humid, evocative ambience colours it front to back, from the seductive licks of 'Return to Deuce' thru the flamenco trills of 'Traffic', taking it to cinematic levels on the floating pads of 'Seven Eight, Too Late' and the Vangelisian plumes of 'Open Era', to an aerial cat's cradle of flutes and subs to 'Sush' and hand-played drums of 'Right-on Time.' Sound of the summer!