Fabric 62

"People go, 'What's a house gangster?' A house gangster is someone who keeps it real, that's what it is. And that's what I am." Thus spake Carlos Sosa—better known to clubland as DJ Sneak—in a 2009 interview, and that philosophy of existential realness is about as good an indicator of Sneak's house music ethos as you're going to find. His music is a no-frills, back-to-basics, Chicago style of house, heavy on straightforward, driving four-to-the-floor beats and looped two-bar basslines, with plenty of to-the-point disco, swing and soul samples for added flavor. It's a meat-and-potatoes style, and that's no insult, as witnessed by his sound's near-universal appeal; his music works as well at a sprawling festival as it does in a sweaty warehouse. Sneak's sound must work pretty well at London's Fabric too, as the club has tapped the veteran (who honed his jack-beat style in the early '90s while an employee at Chi-town's Gramophone Records) to man the decks for its latest mix CD. And, just as you'd expect, what you get is pure Sneak from start to finish. (With track titles like "Light It Up," "Old School," "Funk My Sax" and, charmingly, "Crack Ass," what else would you expect?) On opening cut "Calcium," from Strip Steve and Das Glow, a massive kick drum modulates into swirling hiss while a hi-hat clatters away and…well, not much else, really. But that brilliant and efficient simplicity is the point of the number, as it is on most of the mix's tracks. Darius Syrossian's remix of Hector Couto's "Creampie" is all swingy swagger; Christian Burkhardt & Einzelkind's "Cooper" drapes heavily-treated vocal snippets over a classic disco bassline; DJ W!ld's "Take a Trip" melds jazzy chords to its "Mushrooms"-like tale of hallucinatory fun. Sure, there's not much in the way of dynamics—in true Sneak style, the flow is as linear as you'll find nowadays—but there's certainly plenty in the way of pure house groove. That's the way Sneak likes it—and, we'd wager, lots of other people do too.