Related Articles
Andres Ordonez, the Chicago-based artist who goes by Specter, has been DJing for over two decades and releasing his own productions for almost as long. But he didn’t release his debut album, Built to Last, until August.
The second side of Built to Last‘s second half is taken up entirely by “Not New to This,” a magnificent, luxurious piece of house music. This is a dancefloor-ready exercise in accretion. “Not New to This” opens with a throb on the congas; more than 30 seconds passes before a wafting synth line enters, and another half-minute slips away before a cymbal ticks. A bass adds heft after the two-minute mark, a second synth joins the fray after three minutes, and so on — additions and subtractions, gentle and precise, keep this beguiling groove going for nearly 11 minutes.
In much of popular music today, you hear talk of artists cramming as many hooks as possible into songs’ opening seconds so streamers don’t skip and radio listeners don’t turn the dial — it’s easy to feel like music is being scrunched and crunched to conform to modern means of listening. Here’s an antidote.
