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Review: LemKuuja's CHEESECAKE+

 

Released through legendary independent label Business Casual in June 2018, LemKuuja's fourth album CHEESECAKE+ - a direct sequel to his 2016 debut CHEESECAKE, is a spectacular record - which mixes French house, future funk and bloghouse era electro house perfectly - creating one of the most memorable (and at times insane) records in the late 2010s future funk boom.

The whole album is produced excellently - it's extremely punchy, heavy, and demonstrates with ease LemKuuja's skills - there isn't a single skip on the album's eighteen tracks (well, technically twenty, if we're counting the bonus offerings!) - and every single track is unique, interesting and fun - take for example, Ouais Ouais - an upbeat, slightly jazzy, electro influenced banger with jittery, light vocal work from SlyLeaf - Brawl, featuring legendary Romanian producer Aests, is classic future funk at heart, with some fantastic sampling techniques and groove thrown in there for good measure - and Me, and Only Me - my personal favourite on the album, is a pounding French electro workout with extremely heavy synth-work, tons of minute details, several references to the work of Ed Banger's favourite duo Justice and some killer string sections and vocal chops. Bloghouse at it's finest!

Another thing I love about CHEESECAKE+ is its clever use of interludes throughout, mirroring SebastiAn's 2011 classic Total. The three interludes present, although short, stand out as some of my personal favourites from the LP - the Hollywood Interlude is an upbeat, fun little track which is built for sticking in between sets in the summer - Romantic Interlude is a smooth, jazz influenced, lo-fi hip hop beat which calls back on his 2017 beat tape jude. - and Envie Interlude is a heavy, slamming electro house interlude which feels extremely influenced by the early work of Fake Blood and D.I.M - which is a huge plus!

Some other personal favourites of mine from this album include the opener Rat River - a cinematic, yet effortlessly cool ditty packed with sweet chopping techniques and the odd drum break for good measure - Melancolie, a genuinely insane track packed with even crazier synth work, gritty production and an unholy amount of bass (that's what we like to see...) and Le Disco Digitales, a funky, fun disco house track which wouldn't sound too out of place being on a mix by legendary Welsh duo Vanguard, or on a late 2000s French house mixtape by The Phantom's Revenge (I also love the track's use of breaks!) - as I said above, this album goes through a huge mix of genres - and these three tracks prove this point perfectly!

In short, CHEESECAKE+ is absolutely brilliant - it's extremely memorable, exciting, stylish and heavily untamed at points - it's charm is undeniable, and it is an absolute must listen for any growing fan of these incredible genres of music. The ultimate disco-electro smoothie, if you will.

Rating: 9/10

You can find CHEESECAKE+ on Bandcamp through Business Casual:

CHEESECAKE+ on Bandcamp

Thank you for reading today's review, everyone! I hope to do a few more reviews in the coming months, so look out for them - I also want to say a huge thank you to GeoFunk for requesting me to review this album!

As always, keep enjoying your stay at the discotheque.



Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 18, 2025 at 9:53 PM

    his 18 yrs old mind making this album was crazyyyyy. I love how not professionally mixing and raw during the old future funk times.

    ReplyDelete

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