Top EPs November 2021
Christmas is coming so fill your pals stocking with the only thing they’re really interested in. Tunes. New ones ideally. Here are some of the naughtiest (and nicest) tracks that have graced the interweb and random turntables over November. Get stuck in.
Solar Suite – Slingshot
We kick off this month’s edition with the second release from On Rotation, the new Leeds-based label headed up by Adam Pits, Lisene and Chris l’Anson. Fresh from releasing Pits’ incredible debut LP, the label reaches out to Solar Suite to bring some of that sweet sweet proggy nectar that’s been bubbling up from down under all year – and does he deliver.
The title track is a typically meaty entrée, all deeply reverberating basslines and spacey pads that loosen the joints nicely in preparation for the sunny hustle and serious thump of Virtual Flight. Guilty Spark kicks off the B with wonderfully drifting synths and pads, euphoria in a squeezy bottle, and Step Ball Chain head Roza Terenzi polishes off this deep, trippy orbit with a dive into the lower ends of frequency.
Lukas Wigflex & Son Of Philip – Me & Meds
Well, a debut from Nottingham legend Lukas Wigflex was a long time coming – but so, so worth the wait. In collaboration with Son Of Philip (watch for his album soon), he brings us an essential addition to any bag of sloppers worth taking to a party. Curtain Nine Tails gets us off to a proper start, just pure warpy techno goodness that fills the room like thick, psychedelic smoke.
Things remain as wonky on the dark, slowly building Faffhammer, a 9 minute breath of humid basement air, and we finish with a proper bit of East Midlands grit, Des Hagenasty lending his artistically weary vocals to another stompy, moody bit of techno – 0115 is alive.
HAAi – The Sun Made For A Soft Landing
My head is blagged how the insanely busy HAAi has managed to cram this many changes in style, tempo and feel into 9 minutes of music – but when you have as much production skill in the locker as the London based artist, we should hardly be surprised, particularly after her mind-bending remix of The Chemical Brother’s The Darkness That You Fear - one of the best tracks of the summer.
Keep On Believing almost follows the same style as said remix, starting as a colourful, splashy techno track descending into four to the floor madness, all tied together around a catchy vocal sample. The Sun Made For A Soft Landing starts as pillow-soft ambience and ascends into breaks euphoria. A single this short shouldn’t be able to pack this much in, but HAAi makes it work gloriously.
Various Artists – Disc Service 01
The new series from Banoffee Pies has landed, and it’s as smoky and sensuous as you’d expect. We’re set up by Jeigo’s understated yet pumping little house number Bloom, before we’re swept into the UKG rhythms and samples of INOu from Max Casebolt.
On the flip DJ Chupacabra turns up the funkiness levels on Lowrider, and this low-lit, silky cruise through a very Banoffee Pies sounding record ends with Madness Of Life – distant keys and horns sitting as comfortably behind the oh-so-smooth percussion as a weary raver sits on the big sofa back home with a cup of tea and a cig.
suki & Sniper1 – Rhythm Export EP
Holding Hands have been one of the standout labels of the year, releasing stinker after stinker with names like Yosh, Tom Jarmey, Gallegos and Kessler. This however, is quite possibly their most pungently scented material yet, curtesy of Melbourne natives suki & Sniper1 – approximately 5 seconds of previews is all it took for another tenner to go straight into the Holding Hands coffers.
Rhythm Export takes no prisoners from the get go, launching headlong into an acid and kick drum whirlwind, before Georges Discovery, a whomping great slab of move-yer-feet bassline and garagey rhythms. On the B-side there is absolutely no let-up in pace. Fast, dark and hard techno for dark rooms and big systems on Purple Haze, and the impossibly bouncy house of Elezon to see us home with bones and heads firmly rattled.
Batu – I Own Your Energy
Batu’s first full EP on his own label since 2019 lives up to its predecessor, as the Bristol-based DJ and producer serves us up a cafeteria tray of certified sloppers. Bass heavy and with sound design to die for, get lost in and never leave, it’s probably about as dark as Batu has got so far, and anyone who’s been following his meteoric rise will know that’s saying something.
I Own Your Energy is broken up dive down the leftfield techno well, before things turn to the graphite end of the hardness scale with the howling transistors and metallic synths of Inner Space. The flip’s got you your fair share of madness too, Go Deeper providing a twisted groove with endless elements to enjoy, before we finish on the silly trip that is Deep Breath. A serious slice of UK dancefloor design this.
INGI – Wrestle
Now for some ridiculous bass and breaks work on the Birmingham label Fly By Night. They invite INGI to knock the metaphorical socks off ravers with waves of brooding low end and precisely programmed percussion madness – and boy does she do it to dramatic, eardrum shattering effect. Just try opener Neita, see if you can find your shoes after 6 minutes in that centrifuge of sound.
The title track uses chopped up vocals and dark melodies to craft one of those darker 4am techno moments, before we’re slapped out of the early morning confusion by the frenetic Góða Nótt, a jungly, electroey, big beaty slab of chaos. To wrap up the package, Rhyvahl turns the opener into a subby, swinging, bass-driven monster.
9th House – Tanit
9th House lands on Waze & Odyssey’s Street Tracks label with a very clear mission in mind – to get crowds of people moving. Tanit is (as far as I can tell) his 5th go on the label, and it kicks off in an Italoey mood with all the standard synthy fun you’d expect to enjoy from driving a Fiat 500 along the Amalfi Coast.
Xarraca is a little time capsule, a flawless little house track that utilises strings, piano chords and vocal samples to sweep your mind straight to 90s New York, and the Pikes mix of the same number just slightly beefs up the drums and throws in a piping little sax – what the hell is not to like about that.
Rudefood – Cloud Hop
South London fixture Rudefood now sets us up with the 5th release on BEAM records, Cloud Hop, and whacks us straight into the closest cumulonimbus with his bleeping, beeping prog house opener and title track. Undercurrent takes the tempo way, way down, an airy little chugger for those who like their dance moves like they like their trains from Nottingham to Liverpool.
On the B side we’re met with the kaleidoscope collage of synths on the breaksy Without A Trace, before we finish with some no nonsense party material with Shift, a track that packs some serious crunch into a 5 minute run time. Wrap your freaky ears around this one if you know what’s good for you.
Laurence Guy – Your Good Times Are Here
There’s a real sense of catharsis with this latest release on Shall Not Fade from Laurence Guy. The final piece of a sonic journey that’s spanned the breadth and length of the pandemic, our good times are finally here, and they come in the shape of a gorgeous four-tracker of sunny house jams and ambient interludes. Let’s ignore the fact that Covid is on its way back for now – we’ve been having fun.
The title track is the sort of vitamin D injected house that Guy is an expert at producing, throwing in that little 303 the unexpected little treat at the back of the beer fridge – and it leads us to the reflective vocal loops and distant horns of I Know You Feel Sad. We’re straight back on the housey goodness with Yeh Good, You? before we finish with the antithesis of his earlier release Mutual Excitement Is A Wonderful Thing – a delicate, wistful piano number Mutual Disappointment Is A Terrible Thing, to bring us cosily home. It’s nice to have an ode to the summer that was.