[Strength Music]

Apparently Jersey house is all the rage right now, due in no small part to a handful of young UK producers who really love Kerri Chandler. It’s been all the rage in my apartment the past month as well, but while I’ve never heard a record by Bicep, the Jersey giant DJ Qu has been shuttling his own peculiar Jersey sounds through the Holland Tunnel to my apartment via his latest 12″ The Way. Qu is probably the only one currently operating in dance music to truly lay claim to the “Jersey house” tag (primarily due to his, you know, living there); but instead of peddling facsimiles of countless Shelter sides, he’s been mining deep into his own murky, distinctive sound and keeps striking gold. The Way is very possibly his best work yet.

“The Way” sees Qu’s first “proper” work with vocalists, and he’s drafted in two of the most distinctive house vocalists you could imagine — Peven Everett and the great Josh Milan of that seminal Jersey group Blaze. It’s a deep, meditative cut whose sounds are distant and inviting all the same. It comes off a bit like what Ernestus and von Oswald might have created had they fallen in love with New York house instead of Detroit techno. There’s a space and patience in “The Way” that only comes with an artist who has complete confidence in his sound, and “The Way” impresses as it moves through movements with purpose. “The Way Pt. II” rides out the track’s skeleton while letting the trio jam over the top, providing a brighter contrast to the first part’s melancholy vibes. “Liquid” on the B side finds Qu pushing his own inimitable “thump and vibe” deeper and deeper, as its submerged acidic twerks and withdrawn moans serve as a driving, peak-time dance floor killer. “Liquid Beats” might be even better, stripping everything away to highlight Qu’s escalating, hypnotic rhythms. Taken as a whole, The Way ranks highly as simply one of the year’s best house records.