Ramon Tapia gets the ”tech house” stamp right in his forehead alongside fellow sound-a-likes such as Jay Lumen and probably a couple of thousand others. I will do the honour an kick my own balls, because the dance floor licking and apple picking hands in the sky pumping tech house just happens to do it for me from time to time.

“Sub Shaper”, the first track on this EP, delivers a pumping beat and floor filling jack groove with those typical layers of tribal rhythms that comes with plenty of tech house. Combined with a darker, minimalistic, male vocal, it will work great with any tribal infused tech house set. But it is in no way a great production nor a unique one. If you’re into this kind of tech house, then you will surely have a great bunch of tracks that is similar to this one. No news on the tech house front. Still, it is a good track that gets the job done. And if you find a way to filter that annoying siren that comes in from time to time, then it actually will get even better. Dum, dam, dum, dam, dum, dam, dum, dam and so on.

How about the second track – “Asteroid”? Well mates, I just do not know what an asteroid sounds like, but I’m sure that Ramon Tapia has had is share of asteroid rides to the Milky Way and back. Just like ”Sub Shaper”, this has that typical tribal tech house rhythm to it, but ”Asteroid” is slower in both tempo and feeling and borderlines the world of ambient, almost religious, experiences with some moody background sounds to enhance this feeling. It all ends up in something best described as ”echo-ambient-space-travelling-tribal-tech” – you know the genre? Neither did I before this. It’s an average track that will make it into the early hours or last hours of the night. And, by the way Mr. Tapia, what’s up with those ”siren” or ”horn” signals? Are they some kind of asteroid alarm signal? “Help, the asteroids are coming”! Please, skip them the next time. They remind me of some old trance shit that my little brother used to listen to when he was in his puberty.

All in all, Ramon Tapia’s ”Sub Shaper EP” doesn’t bring anything new or interesting to the scene. However, with in the genre it fills a purpose and it will do the job for the DJ that is into this kind of music, just like a couple of thousand releases each year.

Verdict: 6.5/10

//Niclas