HH&B - We Come Together

Everyone’s heard about the legendary parties in New York during the 80s and early 90s. A heyday for the club scene, raves and house music, the NYC clubs were awash with freaky club kids, new drugs and new styles of music imported from Chicago and Europe. DJ Halo-Halo and DJ Bula met while working as DJs in the NYC clubs and almost immediately began collaborating; creating popular club hits, rave anthems and funky house. Now with EDM - the disappointing stepchild of rave - gaining popularity at an almost epidemic rate, HH&B find themselves more in-demand than ever over 20 years after their entrée into the club scene. They released four singles and a number of remixes between 2013 and 2014 and their newest single, “We Come Together,” was just released in April.
I’d like to just go on record as saying I am not into deep house, or any kind of house, for that matter. I like my beats broken and my bass grinding. I’m also, as my previous paragraph may evidence, greatly annoyed with the current EDM climate and I think much of what is released nowadays is mindless pabulum, catering to the bros and the vapid ladies who love them. That said, HH&B do have a decent rave pedigree and just because I’m not a fan of house doesn’t mean I can’t recognize when it’s done well. Let’s soldier on then, shall we?
As a critic, I can say this rave duo aren’t completely destructive. Were they phoning it in a little bit by making remixes of  popular hits like David Bowie’s “Ground Control,” The Sugar Hill Gang’s “Apache” and Kiss’ “Rock and Roll All Night”? Probably, but at least they’re not throwing cake at their audience out of sheer boredom. While these club anthems are definitely meant to appeal to the masses and are somewhat sloppily thrown together, there is real musicianship in HH&B’s original tracks, specifically “We Come Together”.
“We Come Together” features vocalist Jun Rarela and, contrary to HH&B’s normal deep house super-rave style, is reminiscent of the soul-and-funk-inspired disco house sounds of the 90s club scene. “Make Some Noise” and “Let It Go,” released in 2014, show almost none of this funky house style, and while technically just as sound, they are festival rave material to the core. The vocal track on “We Come Together” has Jun Rarela singing a complete R&B-style song rather than a cut-up vocal track which is added as intervals as a sample as in HH&B’s other recent tracks. The relatively mellow disco-style beat and music track is another area where “We Come Together” is very different. That said, original ravers will recognize and revere this style as a throwback to a bygone club kid past, while new EDM festival-goers will get a much-needed education on such matters.
“We Come Together” is largely well-produced; in places it can sound a bit canned, but given the challenge of producing an old school sound such as this with modern methods, the track is pretty technically clean. Disco rave is also something Halo Halo and Bula haven’t really messed around with in a while, either, so that may be a factor. It seems, however, that HH&B’s main failing might be in rushing through the production process to produce content. This sort of rushed feeling happens in their remixes as well, and ravers are unlikely to notice, especially in a festival setting (drugs, sex, gladiator sandals, etc). Luckily critics like myself are paid to notice things like this, with our over-analytical, fun-killing ways. I had to find one thing to pick on as well because per my opening statements, do not like house. So there you have it. Nit-pick over, and “We Come Together” is generally a good track given what it is: a fun look back at New York disco house in all its club kid, sparkly, disco ball glory. If you love fun, nostalgic house like this, please to enjoy HH&B’s newest track on Soundcloud or Youtube.
May 17 2015