MARKLEmarkgurney@gmail.com QUICKIES Amit
Acid Trip Tempa 6.5
An interesting and leftfield signing for Tempa, but good to see they’re branching out. However, despite the deep, malevolent and deftly acidic pulses on ‘Acid Trip’, both sides fit snugly into a half-step mould.
Blak Twang feat Congo Natty
Rebel Emcee Infidelity 4.5
I really wanted to like this, but Mr Twang was never the sharpist lyricist, even in his heyday, and Congo has a weak chorus.
Only Joe
Wicked Land Unit 137 6.5
London-based reggae band drop further conscious vibes with a steppah rub from Russ Disciple, sensitive dubstep tweaks from Radikal Guru and stretched dub aesthetics from Sleepy Time Ghost.
Zomboy Here To Stay feat Lady
Chann No Tomorrow Recordings 2.0
If only this track could have stayed as chirpy as the first 36 seconds. Sadly the bouncy dancehall vibes and vocals give way to wobbly silliness.
Dusky
Nobody Else Aus
6.5
A patchy book-ended release from the wonder boys of nouveau house, who kick off with the shadowless floorfiller that is ‘Nobody Else’; a sing-a- long emo vocal and textbook bassline “wobs” combo. ‘What I Never Knew’ is more sultry, but ultimately underwhelming. ‘Atone’ starts off super interesting, with its pulsing bass blasts and wicked cowbell- type thingy, but the vocal wails and chops sound, well, a bit unoriginal. All finished off by ‘Dummy’, and hurrah for it, a no-nonsense slice of tough house music.
Kahn
Kahn EP Blackbox 7.0
KILLAWATTOSIRUS MUSIC UK
01. BONOBO ‘Cirrus’ Ninja Tune “This has been on loop since they released it for free. Nobody can touch this
guy in my opinion!” 02. KRYPTIC MINDS & KILLAWATT ‘Reaching Through’ Osiris
Music UK “Pure bass-heavy techno at 140, really pleased with the resulting aesthetic on this.”
03. IPMAN ‘Persistent Dread’ Dub “Perfect combination of warehouse techno, driving 140 grooves and
animalistic mid-range bass.”
04. GANTZ ‘You Won’t Mind (Thelem Remix)’ Dub “Stripped-back, rolling variation on the original. Does its job so well!”
05. BARKER & BAUMECKER ‘Schlang Bang (Third Side
Remix)’ Ostgut Ton “Can’t help but move to this. This is mainroom techno at its best.”
06. KILLAWATT ‘Unit51’ Osiris Music UK “A Planetary Assault Systems-inspired tune that never fails to get the crowd
bouncing.”
07. SEV DAH ‘Disciple’ Komisch “Nice to hear some techno that doesn’t have to go hard to please a crowd.”
08. BANDSHELL ‘Nice Mullet’ Liberation Technologies “I’m a massive fan of both the artist and label. This tune just has pure
attitude.”
09. KRYPTIC MINDS ‘Nebula’ Dub “It’s got that funky kinda groove that’s so hard to get right in this style!”
10. KILLAWATT ‘Press ON’ Osiris Music UK “This is one I can pull out the bag and hit people over the head with.”
A refreshing approach from the young Bristolite here, managing to pull off not one, but five pretty decent vocal-orientated dubstep tunes. Flowdan on ‘Badman City’ is the most typical, a pure E3 yardman flow. Rider Shafique from Black Canvas drops a mystical roots inflection on opener ‘Prophet’, with fellow South Wester, Jabu, dropping some spoken word lyricism on ‘Snake Eyes’. And do check the Portishead echoes on ‘No More’. Overall, nothing to piss your pants from, but I do hope to hear more soon.
Reso
Tangram (Remixes) Civil Music 6.0
Pass the Imodium, we have a remix diarrhoea situation here! Clearly not content with a couple of nice rerubs to breathe new life
into the album from last year, the label felt that it deserved 10 sodding remixes. Koan Sound, Om Unit and Doshy star on the 12”, but Billian’s remix, which is part Italo disco, part blow-torched clusterfuck, is totally worth listening to for its sheer lunacy. The other remixes — Starkey, Evol Intent etc — are digi-only.
Romare
Love Songs: Part One Black Acre 7.5
Back with a new bunch of wiggly music worms to plant into our soft, trepanned skulls, ready to eat out our squishy greyness, is the man like Romare. After medicating us with his debut ‘Meditations On Afrocentrism’ last year, this quartet of tracks continues to explore his fascination with sampling soul/ funk music and bolting it, in a Frankenstein fashion, to footwork templates and any other random time signature he feels like. Definitely a talent to check!
Simple
Barely Together Apollo 7.5
Continuing to keep things interesting by mixing up its ambient underpinnings with more dancefloor blockwork, Apollo’s back with another rich offering focused on the melodic, atmospheric, textural and ephemeral, this time from Detroit native, Simple. The six-track EP is a delicate musical catacomb populated by ghostly snatches of digital memory, hardware circuitry dissonance and semi- forgotten, decaying harmonies exuding zephyrean lightness, which sparkle gently but often fail to fully shine.
Friction & Skream Kingpin feat Riko Dan, P
Money & Scrufizzer Shogun Audio
9.0
Two titans of the boards throw down a ridiculously crunched-out 140bpm banger for three of the UK’s top grime MCs to drop 16 power bars like it is Tuesday. ‘Kingpin’ is a bonafide floor destroyer if ever there was one. Calyx & Teebee chip in a decent d&b remix, which has plenty of twists and turns to keep it high octane and in contention. Then Rockwell whips in a little surprise, channelling his inner trap demon, spiralling ‘Kingpin’ off into the trillosphere.
Starkey
Intermission EP Secluslasis 6.0
The Philadelphia export follows up his ‘Orbits’ album with a punchy five-tracker on his own imprint. A previously-released collabo with Leah Smith, entitled ‘Poison’, kicks things off, so you can quickly scoot to ‘Back At It’ for some freshness, and it’s an unabashed club banger. Best is ‘Lies’, a clownish Dirty South- meets-East London beast.
Taz & Akka
Synergy EP Rwina 7.0
Teaming up with collaborator Akka, this pair exceed their e-number allowance and duly bounce everything off the ADHD scale: ‘Illusory’ is hyper-neon footwork, ‘Mobius’ is happy hardcore channelled through Terror Danjah’s left testicle, ‘Paul Is Dead’ is a weird electric dream/ lament about Paul McCartney, all finished off by a Prince/Roger Troutman-inspired footwork-cum- trap joint. I need a sit-down.
djmag.com 087
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