Timo Maas and Starecase, Hope Recordings' prodigal sons, are poised to hook a frothing crossover audience with their first artist full-lengths. Kendra Borowski knocks back the sake bombers.

"As soon as I get a laurel, I'm gonna be crashed out on it." - Starecase's Al Watson

Kendra Borowski leads the charge. Ray Klein shoots the evidence.

On the eve of Timo Maas's New York release party for Loud, 12 Hope and Kinetic Records diplomats-producers, DJs, MCs, label staff, managers, and one journalist-are jammed into 10 square feet of Sushi Samba on Park Avenue. As drinks pass overhead and waiters squeeze by, Timo and Starecase (Paul Crossman and Al "Eelz" Watson) are locked in a huddle, mulling over a track that's been knocking about in Timo's head. "I have this vocal, and the bass line," Timo starts. "Do we have time tomorrow?"

They're here in New York for 36 hours before heading to the Winter Music Conference, where it's universally recognized that nothing work?related ever gets accomplished. Starecase wrack their brains about equipment they've brought with them for the week. "I think we have a mic line, do we have a mic?" They glance at their manager. "Can we get that cable here? All we need is that line and we can do it."

Call it fate, destiny, luck, what have you, but the Hope Recordings crew is blessed to have found each other. For those who become involved with the label-Maas, Max Graham, Starecase, Ian Wilkie-Hope feels more like a family than a dreary old job. Headed by Leon Alexander (A&R) and Steve Satterthwaite (management), Hope's roots lie in Bristol's sadly departed Lakota club. At Lakota, Timo first played alongside Starecase and Leon, and as the fairy tale goes, it's been happily ever after.

"First Floor Deadlock," Starecase's first big record, remains Timo's favorite track. As Hope/Kinetic labelmates and friends, they have remixed one another, collaborated, and grown in four years of Hope Recordings' existence. This spring and early summer, Timo and Starecase are each prepared to drop albums as diverse as they are solid.

Artist full-lengths are dangerous and renowned for flopping dismally, tainting reputations of even the most revered producers and DJs. Critics, therefore, have been eager to analyze Timo's Loud: the funky, dark, booty-bumping, versatile, tech-trance derivative that hit 200 in the American Amazon sales rank. His weirdly captivating takes on downtempo ("Hash Driven"), breaks ("O.C.B."), and full on four/four ("Old School Vibes") are complemented by tasteful, always-risky vocal additions from MC Chickaboo, Kelis and Finley Quaye. Elements of his trademark "wet, percussive funk" linger-backward, underwater beats, anyone?-but it seems as though Maas and production partner Martin Buttrich are mindful that an artist album is less club and more living room, car and bedroom. Elements of a traditional song-writing structure throughout Loud evidence an instinctual vibe that knows when to zig and when to zag at a time when dance music needs reinvigoration. Could this be the long-waited messiah, a Fatboy Slim sans gimmicky rock loops?

"I haven't been afraid to call it pop," Timo said. "It's accessible." He agrees that dance music in the States needs a hook, a crossover to the mainstream that doesn't abandon the heart and soul of dance music.

"But it's not commercial," I suggest.

"No, it's not," he concurs.

While Timo's record climbs charts and wins hearts, Starecase are preparing to release an album that has been long in the works. "It's actually been done for a year," they giggle, admitting to being perfectionists. Firstfloor (so named by a banker in an online contest) explores uncharted corners of their tech-trance specialty-snarling bass lines from the depths of hell, and chugging, four/four kick drums. In addition to an appearance from Spiritualized vocalist Sean Cook, they partnered with vocalist Jokate in "true Starecase style, coming in through the gate at the last minute," they divulge, to churn out the catchiest track of the album, "Faith."

"The LP format was a chance to stretch our wings, to try things we couldn't put out on an EP or 12-inch. The album has got an organic, warm vibe to it," says Crossman. "It came out a lot dubbier than we thought it would. It's really a sampler of what's to come, because there's a varied style across the whole thing."

So for all the partying, the lack of desire to get a "proper job," and all the other perks that come along with having such a supportive label, do they ever wonder if it'll all disappear someday? "As a genre, dance music is like rock," says Crossman. "It's never going to go away. And we don't have any laurels to rest on yet!"

"As soon as I get a laurel, I'm gonna be crashed out on it," Watson laughs.

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