Naarm / Melbourne-based collective / party people, Wax’o Paradiso, continue their run of high quality 12s with a new E.P. from local producer, Ryan Hunter, aka Midnight Tenderness. With a pedigree that includes super sorties for Butter Sessions, both solo, and together with Rory McPike, as Turner Street Sound, here Ryan betrays his love of street soul and `80s electro boogie. Combining, and updating, those sounds on a trio of tracks. Hydrosphere, for example, is a punchily programmed jazzy, Juicy Fruit jam. Its significant kick coloured by freestyle-esque clicks, pops, and ticks. The romantically rendered, Rain Vibe, takes its name, no doubt, from the cascading keys, and smudged, submerged sequences, that counter its crashing drum machines. 

The record gets increasingly laidback the further you go, and the bongo`d, conga`d Catamaran is much more obviously beach / pool-side bound. The bass is seriously booming, but the synths recalling the guitar-picking of an old Balearic favourite. The closing Hame Remix has the music at its most spaced-out. Gating the original melody, so that it’s weird and wobbly, while fixing everything to a chugging mid-tempo beat. Lacing the tune with `90s IDM bleeps and laser blasts. The b-line baring a bigger digi-dub / reggae influence. Surfing a slowly emerging acidic undertow, the track, now, closer aligned to The Orb, and label-mates, OK EG, than a mating of Mtume and Midnight Star. 

Midnight Tenderness’ Hydrosphere can be ordered, direct, from Wax’o Paradiso.