Japanese drum & bass veteran Makoto returns to Hospital Records with Spread Love / Contact, a three-track single led by a full-band cover of the Al Hudson & The Soul Partners classic. It’s a song with serious pedigree: Lenny Fontana’s house rendition became a crossover anthem in the early noughties, and Nu:Tone’s drum & bass remix of that version is a liquid favourite in its own right. Handing it to Makoto—one of the scene’s most musical minds, and a Tokyo figurehead since his Good Looking Records days—makes perfect sense.
The title cut, Spread Love (feat. Pete Simpson), is a loving recreation rather than a radical overhaul. Live strings and guitars wrap around Simpson’s warm, soulful lead, and Makoto’s drum programming keeps the swinging, disco-era feel of the original even as it settles into a rolling liquid groove. It’s a sound digital production rarely matches—the band hits together with genuine human warmth, and the vocal sits proudly at the front of the mix throughout its near-six minutes. The Full Length Mix stretches the arrangement out to almost seven, letting the instrumentation breathe and the strings do their work.
Flip the record and Contact is a different animal entirely: an atmospheric amen-and-reese cut that nods straight back to the ambient drum & bass sound Makoto helped define in the late nineties. No vocals, no live band—just a skittering break, a deep, wobbling bass and pads that hang in the air like morning fog. It’s a reminder of his roots, and it sits beautifully alongside the polished soul of the A-side.
With Spread Love / Contact, Makoto flatters both sides of his sound: the musicality that has made him a Hospital mainstay and the atmospheric touch that made him a Good Looking legend. The cover is respectful without ever sounding reverent, and Contact proves the B-side is no afterthought. A classy, feel-good single from a producer who still plainly loves what he does.
