Like the first kiss beneath sodium streetlights after a night of unsaid things, “Insatiable” by Thanksmate arrives with a kind of nervous elegance – trembling yet sure, dripping with the sweaty allure of nostalgia and wrapped in the silken scarf of future memories. This debut on Soul Express Records doesn’t just nod to House’s golden past – it dances with it, slow and close, like lovers at a barely-lit afterhour.
Opening with the title track, “Insatiable” is a pulse wrapped in velvet. A raw Chicago House heartbeat beats beneath glitching neon bleeps, while a vocal – somewhere between a prayer and a proposition – threads its way through the smoke. The break slows things down just enough to make you ache for the return of the beat, which lands not with a bang, but with the soft thud of resolution. It’s the sound of a basement dancefloor exhaling. House has rarely sounded this alive, this thirsty, this perfectly unquenched.
“Acid Memories” follows – a sun-faded photograph of Balearic reverie where acid is no longer a weapon but a watercolor brush. The 303 doesn’t stab; it melts. It weaves through synth lines like heat rising off a Mediterranean road, where every hi-hat is a sigh and every chord progression smells faintly of sea salt and warm skin. This isn’t a track, it’s a mirage: just out of reach and utterly intoxicating.
The A-side closes with “Mimosa”, a fizzy, sunrise-soaked toast to 90s proggy flirtations. There’s a hint of breakbeat DNA in its bones, like a memory trying to resurface from the depths of a shared past. Here, the track doesn’t push – it purrs. Think open-air sets, eyes closed, arms out, as the sky shifts from indigo to gold.
Then comes “Breathin” – and with it, a new kind of oxygen. The acid line returns, but now it’s coiled tighter, sharper, seductively menacing. The bassline prowls like a panther in a warehouse jungle, while vocal snippets flicker like static from an FM radio caught between love songs and late-night confessions. This is club music for those who know the difference between dancing and ritual.
“Computer Machine” grinds its gears next, cybernetic yet soulful. Its 80s flirtation flickers like VHS tape caught in the player — erotic, analog, a bit haunted. What begins as robotic pulses quickly blooms into a lush, tactile house cut that wears its sweat like cologne. The night grows deeper, more intimate, more real.
Closing the EP is “Cala Bassa”, a lullaby for the love-drunk and the lovelorn. It’s the afterparty’s last glass of wine, the final glance before the lights come on. Slow, breathy, and almost whispered, the track leans in close and tells you it’s time to go — but only if someone walks you home.
Across six deeply felt tracks, “Insatiable” is less a record and more a diary of moments we didn’t realize we were living until they were gone. It’s House music in its most sincere form: sensual without sleaze, emotive without kitsch, smart without ego. Thanksmate has given us a debut that doesn’t just reflect on the genre’s past — it expands its emotional vocabulary.
“Insatiable” is a love letter to House music’s emotional spectrum – from the dreamy, sun-drenched melodies of “Acid Memories” to the raw, peak-time energy of the title track. Though much of the EP thrives in the liminal hours — those intimate, late-night moments where music becomes memory – Thanksmate prove they can also deliver dancefloor heat when it counts. Their debut is elegant yet punchy, nostalgic yet forward-looking, and above all, deeply human. With “Insatiable”, the duo offer not just a collection of tracks, but a narrative arc — one that moves, seduces, and lingers long after the lights come up.
Words by Holger Breuer
Torture the Artist 