Top EPs August 2021
How are the lungs and legs feeling? It’s been a long time coming, but we’ve finally made it to that promised land of cardio where everything just feels alright for four days. Lost Village, We Out Here, Warm Up, Maiden Voyage, and all the other great festivals that have been clinging on long enough to show us how good they are – cheers.
Meanwhile, unreal new music is still coming out. You’ve probably heard a lot of it around various woodlands and fields over the last month. Here’s some of the best.
Aloka – Inta
Well have I been heavily anticipating this one. The fourth Typless Records release has been an ear-tingling teaser since the first snippets came out, and now here in its full glory, Inta will likely be knocking on the door of that VIP booth that is EP of the year.
Title track and opener is an immaculately structured piece of electronica complete with euphoric, melancholic melodies sweeter than the first sip of that midday pint. The only criticism is how criminally short it is. Then B4-XL ramps things up a notch with DJ Metatron-esque ambience cut out by snarling percussion, before on the flip we find the machine gun finger kicks of Chroma and the pattering breaks and sighs of Movement. Serious music this.
Tom Place – EDNET001
Hectic. The only way to describe this seriously dramatic, seriously dark first release from Eavesdropper Network, the new sub-label of Helsinki outfit Echocentric Records. Throaty acid lines, fast, hard and razor-sharp percussion and brooding low end, and that’s all just in the first track.
Shedbug’s remix of said lethal weapon puts an emphasis on building tension, which breaks in a torrent of noise as you flip over and stick your face into Archelon, all throbbing bass wobbles and UK swagger. We finish with Fragmentation, the night bus home, trailing brake lights and the sounds of earlier carnage still ringing in your ears.
Remotif – COY004
The hottest label in the last 12 months teams up with a producer making serious waves in the same timeframe, and the result is a steaming, piping hot slice of spice. Starting in true Coymix fashion, opener Goodbye Sunshine drifts along on a bed of prog house synths and waves of L’Oréal-luscious pads before we bounce into Ssssputnik!, a groovy rattler complete with a cheeky little sample from the Omar S classic, The Shit Baby.
On the B, we really get things moving with Telepathic Heights, the lazily winding creak of a 303 atop shimmering synth patterns and soaring pads carrying you to unexpected corners of sonic bliss. And we finish on the standout You Win Again, Gravity - strap yourself in, nestle yourself down, and drink in the breaky magic and the technicolour lights – boing.
Various Artists – MD004
We take a trip down under now, for the first VA compilation from Mind Dance, a label set in the heart of the clinically consistent Melbourne scene. And you can hear that sound singing through each snare, bassline and chopped up vocal on this really rather excellent five-tracker.
We start groovy with Current Obsession’s Circadian Rhythm, before taking a hard left at the edge of space on DJ Fett Burger’s mix of DJ DOGG’s offering. OK EG provide their usual heady, darkly tunnelling synths and wide open soundscapes, pinning everything back nicely with pattering, almost Dnb percussion, before we’re back in airy fairy land again on Rings Around Saturn’s 8-Bit Flex. Your palette cleanser is Nice Girl’s Look At U, trippy man.
Nite Fleit – Sychophantic Romantic
First of all, best name of an EP on the list. Second of all, what a way to kick off your own label. Nite Fleit, the Australian-born, London-based producer who’s been screwing up sweaty faces on labels like Steel City Dance Discs and Unknown To The Unknown, opens her own venture with a real nice, real breaksy number, but in the words of Mike Skinner, don’t mug of yourself, the title track is as stinky as the 5am portaloos.
An electro EP but with a little extra, expect all the bite and rattle of acid that comes in the standard package deal, but with some gorgeous textures and the odd dash of euphoria dropped in the mix, particularly on Malfunction. Good gear all round.
Biodive – Limpet Minds EP
Written in the depths of a Cape Town lockdown, this Biodive EP is big. He’s somehow produced an entire festival in four tracks. Serious 90s prog house feels on the opener, as hard hitting kicks hurry the ears along to a trance-inducing, wide open plain of pure elation. Man of the hour Priori then steps up with his club-ready techno remix, turning the dimmer switch down for a slightly deeper, dingier atmosphere.
Infinite Lifetimes feels ready to close the last festival before the apocalypse; pure warmth, nostalgia, euphoria, fingers brushing lasers in the knowledge that something that’s been real good is coming to an end. Then there’s the beatless comedown mix – probably all you’d play as you cried in the car on the way home.
Tim Reaper & Comfort Zone – Banoffee Pies White Label Series 01
Yes, jungle is massive, and so is Tim Reaper. After his magic collaboration with Special Request on Hooversound and a smattering of solo releases throughout the year, things become just a little dreamy with Toronto based Comfort Zone.
The first release on the Banoffee Pies White Label series (a new arm of the label dedicated to jungle and Dnb) it’s basically just a perfect little summer jungle package; sweet melodies, spiralling vocals and perfectly sampled drum breaks, all melded together for maximum bum-wiggling and minimum dry armpits – someone pass the Right Guard.
Sasha – Detat
A project he’d been sitting on for a number of months, the legendary Sasha treats us with a few absolute movers to unleash on unsuspecting ears and feet just in time for day fest season. Tet Offensive is a 9 minute progressive kind-of-house number, that stutters and staggers its way to the bar and back to the dance floor for 6 minutes and 45 seconds before leaping headfirst into a giddy breakdown.
The rest of the offerings are all solid dancefloor fare for those moments of introspection. From the breaks led, starry-eyed Georgia Decay, to the no-nonsense march of Float Collapse, and the final, head-nodding, slow-stepping Head Melter, there’s plenty to enjoy for all two-step aficionados out there.
Shedbug – The Storm
Making his debut on the Berlin-based label which has housed some true electro royalty, Shedbug touches down with five vicious little whirlwinds of twisting transistors and rasping sythns. From the screwy electrofunk of Battlelines to the demented, thunderous waltzer that is The Chase, it doesn’t take long to find yourself lost in a boiling dark cloud of sound.
And things just seem to get more manic as we go on, until things all come to a soaring finale in Hadal Zone Expedition, a distant dystopian soundscape of clashing synth lines and airy pads – the last tune of the night after a real delve into the dirt.
Boulderhead – Metamorphose
Oh yes, oh yes. Material for serious partying, here. Material for falling through the floor into the downstairs neighbours flat. They won’t care though, they’ll be too busy getting off their rocker to this pure, bassy, techno nonsense.
We open with Quantum Vector Missile, which causes as much damage as it says on the proverbial tin. Metallic synths, frantic pace, playful low end, it’s like having speed in your hips. Polynomial Camoflague is even more playful, introducing a fun little vocal sample and a hissing energy that turns heads quicker than a hissing gas canister in the middle of the dancefloor. And the title track finale? Dark, breaky, moody, but utterly danceable.
Tech Support – For The Time Being
The London-based Tech Support finishes this month’s list with a bang, a bleep, and a big EBM-electro blast of pure drama. Tigris sets us off with a frenzied alarm of shrieking sirens and echoing, room-shaking percussion, whipping the 4am crowd into a frenzy, before we lurch our way into the chugging Eated Soup, where 303s are made to sing for their supper in spooky, groovy fashion.
Things remain squelchy on the acid driven Box Model, before the package is neatly wrapped up with a remix of Tigris from Anatolian Weapons – don your shades.