<span><span>- West End stalwarts Desmond Cheese have just released what is ostensibly their final album, titled <em>Sunrise and Set</em>. The duo, made up of producers <strong>Mak Cheese</strong> and <strong>Desmond Bagely</strong>, have been releasing music for the last decade now. Over that time they’ve touched on hip-hop, jazz and electronic stylings with signature breeziness. <em>Sunrise And Set</em> is no exception.</span></span>
<span><span>The album kicks off with <em>Morning Glory</em> which sets the relaxed tone of the album. Drumless, guitar and electric piano complement each other in ambience while auxillary percussion rattles in the background. I dig the stilled groove of <em>Magnetic</em>, the drums really punctuating the guitar and bass. Also the beautiful outro really completes things with electric piano and seagull chirp.</span></span>
<span><span>Initially I thought <em>Thinking I Was There [Feat. </em><em><strong>Ofa Fanaika</strong></em><em>] </em>was gonna lead into something entirely different than an uptempo disco groove. Ofa’s vocals are great with the instrumention, and there’s some truly dexterous bass playing going on here. The inclusion of a flute solo might make this one of my favourite tracks of the year. Actually scrap that, <em>Storm's Coming [Feat. </em><em><strong>Roman MC</strong></em><em>]</em> may be my favourite. A smooth downtempo groove matched by great verse from Roman (one of Brisbane’s best) with what sounds like a clarinet solo to boot! <em>Afternoon Sun</em> is a nice little reprise of the opening track before the delay drench guitars of <em>Canada</em> begin to chime, ending the album.</span></span>
<span><span><em>Sunrise And Set</em> is slated to be Desmond Cheese's final recording effort, as long as they are “unlikely to be able to commit this much time in the studio again any time soon…”. That being the case they’ve made it count. Cohesive, balanced and just … really good. I know this gets said a lot, but this isn't an ending: it's a celebration of something which is too nice not to continue echoing on into the future.</span></span>
<span><span>- Hillfolk.</span></span>
<iframe style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=4076857796/size=large/bgcol=f…; seamless><a href="http://desmondcheese.bandcamp.com/album/sunrise-and-set">Sunrise and Set by Desmond Cheese</a></iframe>