review
Darksidevinyl skips the extended mix because he doesn't need one
Two full-length tracks with no extended mix and no edit, and Yoshitoshi's third look at Darksidevinyl says more about the label's own judgement than the reach numbers on this one ever will.
deepmelodic
"U R" and "Save Me" landed on Yoshitoshi on 4 September, and neither track carries an extended mix. Darksidevinyl handed the label two cuts at full length, 5:53 and 6:09, and Yoshitoshi ran them exactly as delivered. Nothing here got trimmed for radio or stretched into a tool version. The two tracks are the tool.
That's a deliberate choice. Most club 12"s ship a radio edit alongside a longer version cut specifically for mixing in and out, with an intro extended and a breakdown drawn out so a DJ has room to work. Skipping that step means the tracks arrived already built the way they're meant to be played, start to finish, rather than assembled afterward to fit a DJ's needs.
Yoshitoshi has run since 1994, founded by Sharam and Dubfire as Deep Dish, a Grammy-winning duo with thirty years of catalogue behind it. Three decades hasn't turned the label into a volume operation, and it doesn't sign the way one does. Darksidevinyl isn't new to the roster, either. "Color Of Love / Shadow Master," made with Jordan John, and "Red Face / Black Shine" both came out on Yoshitoshi before this one did. That makes "U R" and "Save Me" his third release on the label, not his first, and a label with Deep Dish's history bringing someone back a third time is making a bigger claim than a debut signing ever could.
The reach on this release reads small next to a Lane 8 or an Afterlife record, and that's the wrong comparison to make. Afro house doesn't move the same numbers as the biggest end of the melodic beat, and it wasn't going to. It earns its place here on records like this one, not on volume.
"U R" is the more immediate of the two tracks. The reverb tails run just long enough, timed rather than indulgent, for the electronic note slides underneath to pull the energy back up before it actually drops. The track keeps threatening to let the room go and never quite does.
"Save Me" works a different hour. The low percs carry a late-night pull "U R" doesn't reach for, and the low-mid sits balanced in a way plenty of afro-leaning tracks get wrong: the low end swallows everything above it, or the mid gets scooped out to make room for it. This one holds both at once, and it does the work without asking the room to meet it halfway.
Darksidevinyl has said he wrote this one in isolation, in front of the mountains, and that fits how unhurried both cuts sound. There's a spaciousness to both tracks that reads more like a producer working alone than one bouncing ideas around a studio with other people in the room. Neither carries the rushed edges of a session built to hit a deadline. The afro and techno combination he's known for is doing real work across both sides: it's immediately danceable, and neither track makes you wait through a build to feel it.
He records out of Egypt and works out of Greece, and Yoshitoshi is one of several labels behind him. His catalogue already runs through Defected, Moblack and Sol Selectas. Yoshitoshi is simply the one that keeps bringing him back.
That placement matters more than the file it's filed under. Afro house has been creeping toward the center of the melodic house and techno conversation for a couple of years now, not the edge of it, and a Yoshitoshi release is as good a marker of that shift as any chart position would be.
Play "U R" while the room is still arriving and save "Save Me" for once the night's already committed. Both are built to do damage in exactly the room they're aimed at, and neither track is rationed for its run time.
Find Darksidevinyl on Instagram. Stream "U R" and "Save Me" on Bandcamp.