KENNETH GRAHAM, DJ SULLI, LORIN GABRIEL — Lovingtouch

Kenneth Graham / DJ Sulli / Lorin Gabriel – LovingTouch is the inaugural release on LovingTouch, a vinyl-only 12-inch bringing together three producers connected to the underground house and techno culture of Seattle and Los Angeles. Released in October 2019 as catalogue number LT000VA, the record moves through three distinct interpretations of deep, dub-inflected club music, from Kenneth Graham’s lush techno atmosphere to DJ Sulli’s stripped-back house edit and Lorin Gabriel’s groove-heavy deep house. The release was curated by the members of Flammable Sundays, Brian Lyons and Michito Iwata, the team behind the long-running Sunday night party in Seattle. The label’s first record therefore functions as both a musical statement and a snapshot of the community surrounding that event: deep, understated and designed for DJs who favour hypnotic movement over obvious peak-time impact. On the A-side, Kenneth Graham delivers “Blacklight”, a lush and dubbed-out techno track that establishes the record’s deepest and most atmospheric mood. Graham is a veteran Los Angeles producer whose work has consistently explored the intersection of techno, house and dub-oriented electronic music. Here, the emphasis is on space and texture, allowing the groove to develop without unnecessary ornamentation. “Blacklight” occupies the territory between dub techno and deep house. The rhythmic foundation remains steady and functional, while the surrounding atmosphere gives the track its character. Dub-oriented production naturally places importance on depth, repetition and the treatment of individual sounds, and Graham uses those qualities to create a spacious club tool rather than a track built around a conventional melodic hook. The A-side is particularly suited to the earlier or deeper stages of a DJ set, when gradual changes in atmosphere can have more impact than dramatic transitions. Its restrained approach also makes it useful as connective material between deep house and more hypnotic techno. The B-side opens with DJ Sulli’s “Close To You (Summit Dub Vinyl Edit)”. Rather than presenting a sprawling arrangement, this version is explicitly framed as a stripped-down deep house edit. The Summit Dub treatment places the emphasis firmly on groove, removing unnecessary layers and allowing the fundamental rhythm to carry the track. That reduction gives “Close To You” a different type of functionality from “Blacklight”. Where Graham’s contribution creates a sense of space through dub techno atmosphere, the Summit Dub edit works through economy. The track becomes a focused house tool, with the arrangement leaving sufficient room for mixing and allowing the groove to remain present without demanding constant attention. The third contribution comes from Seattle native Lorin Gabriel, whose “Deep Down” closes the record. It is described as a groove-heavy deep house track, providing the most straightforward house-oriented moment on the release. “Deep Down” completes the record by bringing the emphasis back toward the dancefloor. Its identity is built around rhythmic weight and movement rather than the spacious abstraction of the A-side. As a result, the three tracks form a carefully balanced sequence: dub techno, stripped deep house and groove-led house. The geographic connection between the artists and the people behind LovingTouch is important to the record’s identity. Flammable Sundays was a long-running Sunday night party in Seattle, and LovingTouch emerged directly from that environment. Rather than attempting to establish a conventional artist-led label identity with a single sound, the inaugural release presents several related approaches to deep electronic music. This makes LT000VA an interesting document of a particular underground house culture at the end of the 2010s. The tracks are united less by a strict genre definition than by their attitude toward rhythm and space. House, techno, minimal and dub overlap naturally across the record, with each producer retaining a distinct personality. For DJs, the vinyl-only format is particularly appropriate. “Blacklight” can provide a deep and atmospheric transition into more hypnotic territory, “Close To You” functions as a stripped house tool, and “Deep Down” supplies a stronger groove for moving a set toward more recognisably dancefloor-focused house. The three sides of the record therefore offer different forms of utility without feeling like unrelated tracks assembled for a compilation. The record also demonstrates why small, carefully curated multi-artist releases remain important within underground vinyl culture. Rather than relying on a single headline track, LovingTouch presents three complementary perspectives. Each side offers something different to a selector, while the shared emphasis on deepness, groove and restraint gives the release a coherent identity. Kenneth Graham / DJ Sulli / Lorin Gabriel – LovingTouch, LovingTouch LT000VA, is ultimately a record built around subtlety. Kenneth Graham’s “Blacklight” explores lush dub-techno space, DJ Sulli’s “Close To You (Summit Dub Vinyl Edit)” reduces deep house to its essential groove, and Lorin Gabriel’s “Deep Down” closes with a heavier, groove-focused approach. As the first release on LovingTouch, it establishes a clear connection between the Seattle underground, Los Angeles production culture and the deeper side of house and techno on vinyl. For collectors, LT000VA is significant not only because it is vinyl only, but because it documents the beginning of the LovingTouch label and its connection to Flammable Sundays. For DJs, its value is more practical: three tracks occupying different points between dub, deep house and techno, all designed around the kind of understated movement that rewards extended mixing and attentive dancefloors.