Hidden Fees "So What" BIS012 by Beats In Space

Hidden Fees is Ivan Berko and Thomas Gluibizzi, lifelong friends and conductors on New York City’s underground dance music railroad. Travelers in multiple decades of the City’s ever-evolving time and space, the duo curate a perfect combination of grit and groove from each corner of the five boroughs and filter through the funky, spunky So What EP for Beats In Space Records.

Stricken of samples, loops and other tools typified in present day dance track crafting and screen mapping, “So What” is “organic music for the modern dance floor.” Berko and Gluibizzi depend on real humans – friends and fellow musicians – to originate proper live studio room works / workouts that breathe, smoke, snort and contort to the body clock’s unpredictable rhythm.

“So What” revels in this communal groove. The minor chord shuffle and percussion pump along rough n’ ready riffs rocketing from saxophone and guitars alike, each element stuffed in-the-pocket by a disco-indebted bassline. The spit-soaked vocals of Christopher Exits strut “So What” from the sweaty depths of a Brooklyn studio and onto the laser lit floor of a legendary night club in NYC’s disco party pioneers’ collective memory (or to the b-side of a Some Girls-era Stones single). Exits’ lyrics examine a narcotic urban codependence from the advantage of a man lost in his own sort of space, an experience we can all identify with or at least dream to believe still happens as cities sterilize.

On the flipside, Tiago touches “So What’s” humanity with acid reflex and a heavy-hitting kick over two strobe-ready remixes. “So What (Tiago’s One Good Mistress Deserves Another Mix)” dune buggies the original’s riffs into sparse terrains before introducing a rich, reverbed Rhodes melody to bring us back home. “So What (Tiago’s One Good… Dub)” embraces the house tendencies of Tiago with a little more pep in its step. The icey colorations of the original track form a slippery but solid glacial floor, while the hand-held rhythms mutate between alien and human pulses.

Each 12″ from Beats in Space Records features original artwork in considerate and serial form. Brian DeGraw of Gang Gang Dance contributes the glass-eyed tropicalia cover art for So What. The 12″ packaging constructed by Will Work For Good features a removable vinyl BIS logo cling.

Hidden Fees’ So What EP will be released on February 11, 2014 on Beats In Space as a limited edition 12” EP and digitally.