much frothed-over funky tune regarded as one of the year's best by Those Who Know (i.e. finney and pals)

tuff beats

but why oh why (i find myself wondering, not for the first time) do funky-producer man dem go in for the pre-set keyboard sounds?

in this case: the cliche house organ pulse (very "plastic dreams", early 90s*) and then the sort of sci-fi/doomy synth fanfares that are frankly ungainly

it's a serious question--funky house producers don't seem concerned about "sound design" (never totally sure what people mean by this term, i guess "coming up with individualised, finely-tweaked timbres"), whereas that is a central, overriding-all-other-considerations thing for your postdubsteppers and Germans mnml types... customising your timbral palette so that it's not off-the-peg

funky guys, in contrast, they're all about the groove and the drum sounds and the density-yet-fluency of the beats -- the other elements in the track have this paint-by-numbers quality... or more precisely, it's straight out of the paint tube no mixing up the colors to get subtle shades and idiosyncratic hues

* rather a lot of this jizzed-over House Girls CD sounds - in all honesty -- like subpar UK house music from 1991. right?