The Amsterdam-based producer Kabale Und Liebe seems most comfortable making house music based on a foundation of vocal samples. Alternating releases between 100% Pure and Remote Area after helping launch Area Remote on the back of his Daniel Sanchez-voiced 2007 smash, “Mumbling Yeah,” Liron van Daalen selects narrators and variables that often fit but are a cut above the current milieu. “Since You Looked Into My Eyes,” laden as in The Fog’s almost rap-like cadence, is unexpectedly close to 2010’s take on hip-house. Even the dessicated pitches and vacant chords squishing between words equal some of rap’s most queasy progressions. Exhortations to “just uh, breathe, and give it what you got” similarly hook “Improvised Love” into the hip-house sound, although its delicate arrangements seem inconsistent with the rhetoric. Kudos to Van Daalen for venturing into foreign territory on Since You Looked Into My Eyes but the space he’s claimed isn’t particularly appealing.
