ARTIST: MELCHIOR SULTANA & KAYSOUL
TITLE: MELEGO EP
LABEL: FLUID FUNK
CAT NO: FF006
FORMAT: 12"
GENRE: DEEP HOUSE
COUNTRY: NETHERLANDS
RELEASE DATE: FALL/WINTER 2024

Special transmission coming up next on Fluid Funk with a choice split effort from Malta’s Melchior Sultana and South-African producer KaySoul. Whilst Melchior’s been honing his deeply lush, sun-streaked sound over the past fifteen years with unfaltering dedication, culminating in his milestone full-length masterpiece ‘Mediterran’ on Jus-Ed’s Underground Quality from 2015, Johannesburg-based vibist KaySoul’s been dishing out proper bubbly, funky house joints on a drip tease flex, including his solo release “Click EP” on Fluid Funk in 2022. This release oozes pure feelgood coastal vibrations and loungey poolside hedonism thru and thru.

Melchior Sultana’s side kicks the “Melego EP” off with a hypnagogic house tune, “Sustained”, which has you drifting off into a deeply oneiric headspace straight away. Its lavish palette of sun-bleached pads, tap-tapping drums, prismatic piano and stealth sub-bassy drive makes it the epitome of a sensuous neo-balearic chugger. His second track, “Fusion”, trades the wooziness of the opener for a slightly more dynamic propulsion, though it retains those trademark iridescent harmonics of Sultana - flush with these cascades of glassy chords, ultra-processed funky riffs and dream house-y vibes.

Flip it over and there’s KaySoul shifting gears onto further jazzed-up, jacking house speed with “Let’s Get Down” (feat. Kevin De Coste & Mario Casares) - a no-nonsense slab of late-night boogie, rife with nods to Blue Note-style bop and the French Touch’s classic filtered house style. Handed to Nico Lahs, this track gains a further stripped-back tension while intensifying that brass-laden jazz swing and overall smokey vibe to hypnotic effect. Topping it off on a slo-burning, heavy-lidded type of finale, “Sea Crawl Out My Eyes” cuts a path of pleasure-seeking abandon across the room, channeling the drums’ martial pulse and overly sensuous bass energy into a piping-hot piece of loungey intimacy. Feel the heat much?