Serge Verschuur and Martijn Hoogendijk (a.k.a. Alden Tyrell) have recently collaborated on several edits and remixes for Verschuur’s Clone conglomerate, lending their touch to tracks by Gerd and Rodney Bakerr Presents Mystic, as well as one of Hoogendijk’s solo productions, “Touch The Sky,” which featured Mike Dunn on vocals and was released earlier in the year. House Countdown, part of Clone’s Jack For Daze series, marks their first full record as Serge & Tyrell. The two are notorious classicists, at least in their tendency to push music with very few frills. It then follows that their official debut offers upfront, bare-bones business.

House Countdown is not dissimilar in spirit to Gerd’s recent excursions as Geeeman. The pieces here are cleaner cut and considerably less reckless than Geeeman’s, but they embody the same tracky ideology. The title track’s “ESP Deng’t Mix” is dominated by jacking vocal chops and a grinding, old-school house bassline, which are placed atop a straightforward, driving rhythm. Its “Eighty-Nine Mix” is similarly forceful, although the song has been modified to fit the titular throwback template. The bassline is slightly modified in tone, and hand drums roll under the kicks. Organ stabs and a more orotund vocal part round out the mix, situating it comfortably alongside a number of productions from the late ’80s and early ’90s. Finally, “Pump-O-Matic” sounds like Dance Mania by way of New York, mingling a cut-up vocal repetition (“Pump it”) with rattling rimshots and dense rave organ. Uncomplicated and inherently functional, the record is more revitalization than rehash. There’s little to differentiate it from its golden-era influences, but Hoogendijk’s involvement (he’s a mastering engineer by trade) at least guarantees his signature bump throughout.