Gerry Read
Jummy
Release Date: Nov 26, 2012
Genre(s): Electronic
Record label: 4th Wave
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Album Review: Jummy by Gerry Read
Great, Based on 3 Critics
Based on rating 8.0/10
Gerry Read is just 20 years old. But it would be wrong to call him "precocious" or an "upstart"; for the most part, the British producer stays quiet and releases tracks. His relative anonymity-- press photos obscure his face; if he's on Twitter it's a really good disguise-- and steady release schedule have a lot more in common with the old Chicago and Detroit heads than the current generation of UK producers.
Based on rating 3.5/5
Since his emergence last year, Gerry Read has consistently lurked on the fringes of house music acceptability. His trademark production style is poised between reverence to house's atavistic roots—the thump and crackle of Chicago at its rawest—and a committed deviance from its norms. His releases, predominantly for Ramp sub-label Fourth Wave, seem perfectly suited to the functional 12-inch format—and yet their murky sonics and ramshackle construction means that only the bravest of club DJs would deploy them.
Opinion: Excellent
The announcement of a debut album by Gerry Read came as no surprise, considering his flurry of activity in the last couple of years: 12" releases on Delsin, 2nd Drop, Dark Arx and Ramp Recordings sublabel Fourth Wave (including three EPs on the latter in 2011 alone) that dabbled in dub and garage before seeming to settle on house. It's admittedly been hard not to wonder whether his dishevelled, agitated approach would translate successfully to a full-length. Read has knocked out enough dance music to fill whole label schedules, but his prolific and eclectic approach seems to strain against a noticeably low boredom threshold – not something you'd think would be conducive to producing a focused album.