After about three and a half years – a pandemic-sized break – Tom Giles and his The Whole Truth project are back on Mark Seven’s Parkway Records. While Tom’s most recent outing, on the similarly super popular Star Creature, was a bit of modern boogie, Believe is more uptempo, and more 4 / 4`d, and if not quite house, then certainly inspired by the “proto” grooves that birthed that genre.

The original mix announces itself with congas and hand claps, and is proper Paul Simpson-esque business, with a squelchy synth riff – that would have been　grand at Larry’s Garage – and Leroy Burgess-like keys. Something about the track reminds me of Class Action’s classic Weekend. Perhaps it’s the way that the rhythm sorta stalls, stutters, breaks down, and briefly repeats. The way the high hat sharply snaps open and shut. Listening, I find myself singing, “Tonight it’s party time, it’s party time tonight.” It could simply be the tune’s powerful positive vibes. Making Monday a Friday.

The extended Club Mix lifts a loop of familiar percussion, and showers that with syn-drum pops, and generally injects more space. More room, for example, for the piano to roll. The epic Life After Dub Mix then has a dab of whatever it is that The Idjut Boys are taking. Adding extra washes of echo, and snatches, glimpses, of strummed guitar. When it’s all over I’m left with the question, “Just how do Parkway, and their cherrypicked roster, achieve that authentic `80s sound?”

The Whole Truth’s Believe is out now on Parkway Records.