It’s been seven years since Smallpeople’s debut album, ‘Salty Days’. In the time since, much has changed in the world of dance music, yet the Hamburg duo have remained dedicated to their unapologetically reassuring vision of house music as-a-whole. With ‘Afterglow’ we get a record carved directly from the hearts and record collections of two individuals whose understanding of dance music appears to be some sort of blissful second-nature.
Smallpeople and Moomin are two pillars of the contemporary deep house game, and the Closer label from Germany is the perfect spot for them to unleash their singular beats on. “Lack Of Lighters” is a tightly packed house gem that strays onto a delightful off-kilter mode thanks its wobbling bassline, while “Secret Elevator” is much dubbier and focussed on the low-end.
Smallpeople doing the Crystal Fandango. After a little while, Just and Julius are back on wax with a fresh three-tracker, that was well tested on the road by some close friends for quite a while- and it was about time to put out this groover right in time for the summer.
Just von Ahlefeld and Julius Steinhoff aka Smallpeople with a double pack full of forward thinking deeper house experiments. From functional to crazy wild and weird… which is a perfect combination for an 8 tack album. The debut album of these two young lads with baseball hats not only honours and delves into a sound that already peaked some fifteen years ago, it also hones and elevates it, without everfalling into the Reynoldsmania trap or being oldgold retold.
Lovely deep house tracks with old schoolish metalic basslines and good vibes. It is time for the season of real deepness again. Smallpeople come along with another joint in splendid House Music to welcome wintertime. Dionne and Julius Steinhoff had an enormous success with their Meadows EP together with Christopher Rau on Smallville in last year’s autumn.
Dionne returns to Smallville for a sweet Deep House session. He firstly seduces with the snugly slotted square bass and blue pads of the title track before ushering in the opulent atmospheres and elegant rhythms of ‘What You Are’, and finishing on the martian jazz melodies of ‘Capsule’.
From the great success of Smallvilles first label compilation “And Suddenly Its Morning” a new deep-house collective evolved: The Smallpeople aka Dionne, Steinhoff & Hammouda, Jaques le Bon and Christopher Rau. Hanging at their record store, djing together and exchanging beats and samples made the lovely Hamburg House gang around Smallville owners Julius Steinhoff and Just von Ahlefeld (aka Dionne) an new source of deepest club culture. Due to their large output Jus Ed from Bridgeport NY signed another 12inch of the Smallpeople for his Underground Quality imprint to come out right after their amazing debut on Laid Recordings.
The Hipodrome Of Music 