Suite Grooves Review:

Close Encounters is Melbourne based duo Allan McConnell and Finn Rees who developed their sound following an European trip where they went crate digging for rare groove records. On their releases they fuse electronic, hip hop, disco and soul. This is their second album following on from the first Soulacoasta in 2018.  They describe their album as a “14-track expedition through all kinds of dance music… house, soul, broken beat and beyond.”
‘Snap To It’ is a chugging laidback disco groove while Flashback takes us back to a ‘90s Nu Groove NYC house tune.  Close Encounters will be playing in Sydney for Vivid in June.  They have played at events including Falls Festival, MONA FOMA and Party In The Paddock. (Words Stu Connolly)

From Bandcamp:

Back in 2018 we dropped ‘SOULACOASTA’, our first long-form body of work – we were blown away by the reactions and still to this day the title track is a favourite in our live show with the full band. We now present to you ‘SOULACOASTA II’, a colourful sonic journey over 60 minutes in length that’s full of energy for vibrant club floors, but equally ready for a headphone journey or long car ride. It’s a 14 track expedition through soul, house, broken beat and beyond, with the bass and beats driving the vehicle as the synths, keyboards and samples decorate the view. This record was an opportunity to get deeper into dance music and dive into niche sounds and samples that we’ve collected from trawling through movies, archives, digging through the crates across Australia, UK and Europe, weaving new inspiration and textures into our music. This record also features some drums and percussion by Lucky Pereira, and bass guitar by Matthew Hayes.

The concept for the music video for ‘ONLY ONE’ was inspired by the surrealist dance sequences in ‘I’m Thinking Of Ending Things’ by Charlie Kaufman and ‘Spencer’ by Pablo Larraín. In the clip you’ll see a dancer’s journey emerging from a depressive slump, and finding her purpose through the joy of dance and movement. The feeling we want to inspire is that we can’t be weighed down by the mundanity of things in life and should embrace a child-like sense of wonder like the dancer in the clip.

We really liked the idea of sculpting one continuous album almost like a DJ set in itself. We employed lots of sounds and textures to take the listener through different environments while keeping the grooves in the front seat.

Enjoy,
Allan & Finn
xx