MIXTAPE: Ndeluv – Summer Jamz

When it’s more than just a wave, revivalism can be an epidemic. Ndeluv (phonetically ‘indie love’) from San Francisco is signed to 3qtr who also put out Phlo Finister’s last project, and the wavelengths are relative. Some use of Aaliyah-inflections and swaggy restraint are certainly present on tracks like ‘Slim’, personal fave ‘Sweetest Thing’ and the ‘Are You That Somebody’ interpolating ‘London Kush’. But it’s those few beds of faithfully gritty, low-down, chunky grooves falling between the-streets-and-the-sheets that may really elicit the right level of ‘mm, sh*t’.

Whilst some of the engineering could be a little more definitive on whether it’s going for outright lo-fi or hi-fi (the over-bravura title track feels invalid with the rest of the updated vintagery), there’s displays of past tense R&B axiom that are confidently present tense. It’s an educated gusto that 90s idealists will admire. See also the fat cut ’1994‘. Thank us for your love life later.