URB ‘n’ RI - “Red Cell” Sounds Like Glasgow EP 1997 Deep House
URB ‘n’ RI is an alias that was used by Glasgow DJ and producer, Domenic Cappello, who, up until the pandemic hit, was holding the UK’s longest weekly residency at a legendary venue called the Sub Club with his DJ partner, Harri. Although he’s way more prolific as a DJ, Cappello’s produced a bit, too. But URB ‘n’ RI isn’t solely just Cappello’s own work; while he’s produced and written every track under that moniker, he’s invited different people to co-produce each of the tracks with him.
Cappello’s origin story is a unique one, though. His fixation with music began in the early 80s with hip hop and electro, but after tiring of it, he found himself gravitating heavily towards the blues. It was then as a blues junkie that Cappello would earn his first performances as a DJ, impressing the older folks with his collection of rare gems and his deep knowledge of the genre’s history. But then the late 80s would hit and acid house would blow up in the UK and he would begin transitioning into a house fanatic. With his Friday and Saturday night gigs, Cappello attempted to play acid house for his blues crowd and then was summarily fired (lmao).
In 1993, he earned a warm-up DJ slot at the Sub Club on Saturday nights and not too long after, he and Harri would become Saturday’s main attraction, earning a global reputation as one of the most consistently great and unique dance music weeklies on the planet. ‘95 would then see the start of Cappello’s production career, co-writing and co-producing tracks with two popular DJs from Leeds, Carl A. Finlow and Ralph Lawson. The following year, Cappello would launch his URB ‘n’ RI project with the Space City EP, enlisting Finlow to co-produce two of its tracks. And then in ‘97, URB ‘n’ RI would appear on a Glaswegian house mix called Sounds Like Glasgow. An extra track, “Red Cell,” co-produced by Finlow, would also appear exclusively in full on a 12-inch release called Sounds Like Glasgow EP.
Much like Cappello’s legendary sets, “Red Cell” is a house track that’s really on its own unparalleled vibe. It’s hard to say that anyone else makes house music that sounds similar to this. It’s a carefully crafted deep house jam, but stripped of any and all of the jazziness that’s typically inherent to a deep house track. While deep house producers tend to drive us towards feelings of ecstasy with peaking brass, piano, or xylophone improvisations, Cappello and Finlow opt instead for tight and slowly built, headily packed abstractions, chock full of a variety of neatly woven drum rhythms and occasional staticky bursts that surround an underlying bassline of stabbing funk.
Find me a deep house track with an approach to creating a groove that’s similar to this one that’s not by Cappello or any of his associates. I’ll wait. Glasgow house might as well be from Mars. Just a wild vibe.
