Amsterdam producer Steven van Hulle, a.k.a. Awanto 3, today shared an elliptical new track off his forthcoming sophomore LP Gargamel. “Azrael” is a deep house collaboration with fellow Netherlands-based producer Darling, and the track employs a subtly cheeky sensibility to hypnotically droning effect. It isn’t obvious whether the lounge-y central melody is intentionally trying to be funny, but the lightheartedness definitely works, adding an unsettling character to the deeply stoned vibe here.
Van Hulle told THUMP about the track’s genesis over email. ‘”Azrael’ is the first track on the album because it was one of the first tracks I produced in the little Gargamel house,” he said. “My good friend Darling passed by to help me connect some machines I usually don’t work with in my productions, like the 808, 303, Poly 800 and Korg MS10.”
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“Azrael is also a cat owned by [The Smurfs character] Gargamel, who is a frustrated wizard and always looking for smurfs to catch and throw in his magic soup that gives him new powers. Azrael has been my favorite cat for ages and now it was time to add him to my family of tracks for the Dekmantel album. I love to give names and specially to tracks that will be played by others. It becomes alive and so we keep on creating new worlds of fantasy and reality, until death is knocking on our doors. Azrael is also the name given to the angel of death…”
Gargamel will be released by Dutch imprint Dekmantel on April 11, and is available for preorder.
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