Good Morning Mix: Go underground with Claptone’s house-inflected Halloween mix

by: Rachel Narozniak Oct 31, 2018

Claptone introduced a different connotation of “haunted house” in his Halloween mix, originally released in 2017. With the month of October at its peak, Claptone’s Halloween effort warrants revisitation, and it is accordingly with an enticing wave of his white gloves that Claptone invites listeners to delve into two hours of sumptuous, soulful house selects. A sleek underground spin on the traditionally trap and bass-laden Halloween sound, the mix is a collection of mid to downtempo tracks that fluidly unfurls with each second. Claptone subtly imbibes the spirit of the Halloween season in the production through deliberate song choice — Ordonez’s “The Spell,” for instance, occupies a mellifluous several minutes of the mix. A dark take on Talking Heads’ “Pyscho Killer” only further underscores Claptone’s attention to the inclusion of the spookiest sonic subject matter.

Eerie synths that stab on occasion, and thrillers of spoken vocal parts augment the mix’s hair-raising quality. In the titular fashion of Claptone’s sophomore album, the modern house revivalist’s sensation building Halloween mix should bring out the “fantast” in each listener this Halloween season.