It’s fairly safe to say that Ears To The House has a somewhat strained relationship with PR agencies. Their job is to get the best coverage possible for their clients, whilst our job is to ask questions – so it’s no wonder that most emails we receive from PR people ended up being binned.
Then again, perhaps this is for the best. Two years ago, Masters At Work released their first track in a very, very long time. A lot of people took notice – partly because the pandemic meant they had little choice but to – and our editor was no exception. As a fan of Masters At Work since the 1990s, he reviewed their song “Mattel” on this very site.
His thoughts? Well…
“I need not have [bothered being excited for this release]. This is easily one of the most dull, overhyped, forgettable records I’ve heard in a long time. The many influences of Masters At Work tracks and remixes many years ago seem to be curiously absent here. The record starts off well enough, but not much seems to happen during the eight incredibly long minutes it plays for… Forget the alternative mixes as well – they somehow manage to be even more boring than the original.”
Aside from reminding us that we really should bring back our reviews column at some point, what’s more noteworthy here is what happened next. Louie Vega actually provided a link to our review of “Mattel” on his Facebook page – provided by Additive Music, a PR firm that apparently hadn’t bothered to read the review.
Now, Additive Music didn’t get in touch with any requests to cover the single – but we do occasionally get PR agents leaving emails in the Ears To The House inbox. And one who got in touch recently was Clara Suess, the Ibiza-based boss of Suess Media – indeed, she’s emailed us at least three times recently.
The reason? One of the things she’s helping to promote is Danny Tenaglia’s new album for Global Underground – following his two previous efforts in 1999 and 2000. In her most recent email, Suess describes the “eagerly-awaited final instalment of Danny Tenaglia’s celebrated Global Underground trilogy” and asks “if you are able to cover this landmark release”.
Provided in the email were two private Soundcloud links so that we could listen to the album – so we sent them to the editor to get his thoughts. Here’s what he sent back…
“It’s been 23 years since Danny Tenaglia’s previous effort for Global Underground came out. As far as I’m concerned, I could happily have waited another 23 years – because this is very, very disappointing. I’m not sure if it’s because a lot of the music being released in recent years is below par, but most of this album is filled with records you’ll have forgotten before the set ends. Aside from one or two moments, like Tenaglia’s collaboration ‘Move That Body’ with Cevin Fisher, this just left me feeling bored. This just doesn’t live up to the considerable hype around it. It would have been best to let this sleeping dog alone.”
And this is why we don’t let our curmudgeonly editor review things too often…
