Roman DJ/producer AD Bourke is no stranger to the music-making game (he’s had a beat tape out for nearly three years, now), but the recently released Mirage EP for Citinite seems to be the only full-formed record written under his name so far. Taken from that list of eight funky and soulful tunes (well, there’s 10 if you buy the digital version), “Diff Star” is a sort of boogie-flavored hip-hop jam that somehow invokes the vintage sounds of Miami, LA, Detroit, and New York all at once. The track’s bassline sounds ripped out of a lost G-funk joint, the beat might as well be an over-compressed break from hip-hop’s early days, each sparse guitar pluck bears the aftertaste of Motown, and the whole thing is enveloped in the sunny, drug-fueled decadence of South Beach. AD Bourke probably isn’t a geographer of any sort, but the dude certainly seems to have his modern music history down pat.

Diff Star