The best new singles this week
Sizzling singles from the past seven days
SINGLE OF THE WEEK
Dreems/Scientist – Watchamacallit Machine (Pinchy & Friends)
This is one for dub lovers and psychonauts. Ultra-refined label Pinch & Friends outdo themselves by bringing together self-proclaimed ‘cosmic sherpa’ Dreems with bona fide dub reggae legend Scientist on this beguiling six-track EP. Australian producer Angus Gruzman has manifested some scintillating musical moments over the last decade or so, recording three albums and scores of singles while regularly appearing on benchmark labels Multi Kulti and Le Temps Perdu. Hopeton Overton Brown — better known as Scientist — needs little introduction. Dub pioneer, King Tubby protégée and Studio One/Channel One/Tuff Gong alumnus, his list of production credits would spill far beyond the word limit for today’s review. The brilliantly titled ‘Watchamacallit Machine’ features three cuts from each artist split over two sides, with the Dreems originals arriving first, followed by Scientist’s renditions on the flip.
The gloriously whimsical title track launches the set, with off-kilter synth melodies meandering over marching machine drum rhythms and faintly new wave bass. Continuing the genre-defying theme, the stripped rhythm and bass of ‘String Gadget’ unfurls with brooding intent, with oddball textures given acres of space in which to manoeuvre. The final original jam comes in the form of ‘Here Comes The New Prophet’, with syncopated stabs and aberrant synths galloping alongside a determined beat. Scientist’s dubs come next, starting with his take on the title track, where the key motifs burst through pulsing delay tails that glide across sparse drum hits like billowing smoke.
His ‘String Ting’ jam follows a similar trajectory, stripping back the original and getting busy with the feedback to divesting effect. Quite possibly saving the best until last, ‘Here Comes The New Profit’ finds Scientist at his brilliant best, with rolling bass powering through the fog as melodies snake in from the eternal distance and trademark effects work proudly in place of instrumentation. Killer material.
PC
Caveman LSD – Total Annihilation Beach (Isla)
The artist otherwise known as uon, Special Guest DJ and all sorts of other aliases is something of a phenomenon unto himself, ably steering a sparkling intersection of ambient, electronica and techno which feels the very definition of modern. It’s not exactly easy to keep up with the 3XL founder’s exploits when there’s so many collaborative ventures from crimeboys to xphresh, Cypher and sofa, and that’s just in the past year. But what’s certain is that each release feels vivid and individual, which is precisely the case with this outstanding 12” for Daniel Rincon’s Isla label.
By and large it’s not a record that desperately pursues dancefloor approval, even if tangible rhythmic thirst can be felt everywhere. ‘Lost Hours’ teases a 140 rush thanks to the nimble ripple of high-frequency percussion overhead, and there are some jaw-tightening hand drum passages, but it’s primarily a dubby bath of synth voices. It’s precisely the liminal zone which 3XL-related fare probes at, imagining a dance party which isn’t beholden to obvious tropes of physicality.
‘The Sun Will Sink Into The Ocean’ is more obliquely untethered, plumbing the aqueous depths you might associate with Porter Ricks and Vladislav Delay in the Chain Reaction days and leaning on an oceanic swell to buffet along a teeming spread of slithering textures. ‘Hurrian Hymn’ pays tribute to the oldest known pieces of notated music, originally from the ancient port city Ugarit in what is now norther Syria. An oud-like instrumentation clearly references the inspirational source, and our hard-tripping neanderthal runs it through ample dub processing to a simply stunning effect.
Don’t file this one under neo-ambient just yet though, as A2 jam ‘Bottle Service Angels’ offers a sly curveball of low tempo disco-not-disco freakiness which will quite simply slap with anyone predisposed to initiate an actual traditional dance-off. It’s not cookie-cutter fare by any stretch, with spin-backs and bass squelches leading down unexpected diversions before the steady beat returns, but for those who appreciate a sense of adventure in their party, this is definitely not a track to be overlooked.
OW
Don Carlos – Mediterraeneo (4 Quarti)
Few DJs still about their business today can be said to have been active since the late 1970s. Not to be confused with the reggae singer of the same name, Don Carlos (Carlo Troja) is an exception to this rule, having debuted as a producer towards the end of the 1980s with his single ‘Alone’, which took the deep house circuit by storm at the very same pivotal moment at which it was taking off. Its lead chord and melody progression are unmistakable, giving way to equally impressive, glassy synth refractions and a licky bass undertow. We’ll say it now: some tracks are just destined to make an impression on the collective psyche.
Carlos’ native town of Varese, Northern Italy, put him in close contact with a fertile hotbed for deep house, which remained for decades thereafter. ‘Alone’ was an early ‘80s debut, but it wasn’t until 1992 that the first longer-form Carlos masterpiece poked through the cracks, Mediterraneo. By now the producer was a relative master of his craft, and the six tracks on the EP were no less reflective of this. The titular ‘Mediterranea’ first caressed the ears of its listeners as an honest and pleasing cut, among the first to combine the singular velocity of kicks, snares and claps with the more advanced harmonic progressions influenced by Afro- and Latin soul and jazz.
For many of Carlos’ budding fans, it was likely the first time they’d heard such a fusion, with much of the deep house hailing from the US being more rawer and more simply arranged. It’s for this reason that this new 7” reissue from 4 Quarti is as well-timed as it could possibly be.
JIJ
Butterfred – Strictly Butter Cuts (Meakusma)
How sharp are your ears when it comes to new developments in the low-slung beats department? It would be easy to have missed Butterfred’s drops over the past six years or so, given the secretive producer’s minimal engagement with the machinations of the self-promotion-industrial complex. Operating on a self-tilted label and slipping out five LPs and five singles of late-night, blunt-baked beats, he’s quietly amassed a culter-than-cult following which is purely down to the dopeness of his productions. Cast in moody shades, they’re understated affairs but they manage to take you far and wide like the best escapist constructions, clearly informed by the traditions of trip-hop and illbient but cast with a steely, modern finish.
Meakusma have sharper ears than most, so it’s not exactly a shock to find the Belgian label keeping up on Butterfred’s movements and enticing him out of the gloom to fire off a six-deep salvo of beats. These are short, snappy skits in the time-honoured tradition of beat-crafting, peppered with stern speech samples and operating according to their own internal logic. There’s no sense of the outside world here, just tunnelling paths of intrigue set to slow, fractured drums. You can sense a particular dub slant to the signal processing – just check the voluminous reverb on ‘Cut 2’s snare or the looming atmospherics of ‘Cut 3’ – but there’s also space for some swerves into grime, jungle and Miami bass around the edges of the tracks. Such touches are subtle rather than wholesale genre studies, and the approach of low-slung hip-hop beats remains the foundation upon which Butterfred builds his ideas.
It feels as though Meakusma edged towards tracks with slightly more wayward tendencies – there’s nothing approaching typical boom bap to be found here, and it hints at broader horizons for Butterfred as he tentatively emerges from his fortress of solitude. What’s clear is that he has the suppleness in his approach to fold in new styles and textures without losing that consistent focus which has defined his prior releases to date.
OW
GIDEÖN, Tasty Lopez, Tobirus Mozelle – Brighter Day EP (Homo-Centric)
When music makes a statement simply by nodding to a past era, you know things are in a mess. When that period was itself fraught with socio-political, human and civil rights, environmental and — generally — humanity-related problems, our current tangled web of worries is suddenly cast in suitably ultra-HD relief.
Thankfully, then, UK dance music hero GIDEÖN has succeeded in ensuring Brighter Day still feels hopeful. Building on the vibe running through Cajmere’s Brighter Days and its iconic 1992 vocals by Dajae, this isn’t just for lamenting what’s gone, but looking towards better, forward momentum carrying the song itself at all times. And by song, we mean song, with this also one of the finest examples of classic house arrangement we’ve come across in some time. Verses and choruses delivered by Tobirus Mozelle and Tasty Lopez, it’s a captivating duet that refuses to let up until leaving us on this bouncing, rubbery beat through to the last.
Not one for dropping timidly, let’s put it like that, the dub logically looks to turn things down a little, taking us into a deeper overall mood, perhaps more hypnotic, certainly subtly sounding like it should be used later in the party. Albeit the difference is far less pronounced that the term ‘dub’ might often imply. And that exemplifies part of the reason the package feels so authentic overall. A long way from one foot in, another halfway anywhere else, with any club genre there’s a tangible difference between the committed tune and simple replication. Some might say it’s heart. Granted, we are talking zeitgeists, but the phenomenon exists nonetheless. As it does in any art form. Here, GIDEÖN has managed to pay homage to a big one, and conjure its true spirit anew – resilience, determination, and positivity in the face of real adversity.
MH
Big Hands – A Square, A Circle (Blank Mind)
Blank Mind is one of the labels cultivating a vibrant thread of fractured club music at the moment. It’s a sound which sits adjacent to the more overtly dubstep-rooted, Livity-Hessle informed broken techno, dealing in softer palettes with a more organic feel, whether simulated or authentic. The rhythms are spiralling webs of intrigue, and the dubbiness is closer to the Jamaican source rather than UK soundsystem heaviness. You can find similar threads from the likes of Pretty Sneaky and on labels like Cong Burn, where subtlety and immersion are the key ingredients in making something special.
Italian-born Londoner Andrea Bonalumi has been plying his trade in this field as Big Hands, releasing on his own Baroque Sunburst label and Al Wootton’s Trule, placing dynamic drum play at the forefront of his music and creating some outstanding work in the process. Now he returns to Blank Mind after a single in 2021, offering up some delicacies which once again dart around the edges of rhythmic dance music without offering anything obvious. On this occasion the emphasis seems to be more on pin-drop melodic rhythms rather than the drums, with ‘A Square, A Circle’ being especially defined by charmingly haunted chimes pirouetting consistently through the track.
‘Selvatico’ takes things even subtler, bringing some of that aforementioned organic quality into the sound thanks to some very ‘in-the-room’ sounding reverb and a more prominent percussive presence, but again there’s meandering bleep lines which form a noticeable part of the Big Hands palette on this release. ‘Abanera’ similarly finds that happy balance between needlepoint electronics and real world sonics, managing to whip up a light-as-a-feather workout at 170bpm. Making a nod across to the European deep techno mavericks like Konduku and Valentino Mora, the track’s precise programming is the techiest element on the EP, but it never overshadows the natural, meditative qualities which make the music so instantly appealing.
OW
Within the framework of the bold and immediate club scene they first emerged in, LCY has always communicated ideas deeper than straight-forward bangers. Genres like grime and footwork have plenty of capacity for introspection and conceptual ideas, but they’re not often used as such. After the years of research and development around identity on their own SZNS7N label, they appear on Fabric’s Originals series with a fully-formed EP which drops some intriguing markers as to where their creative intentions lie right now.
LCY’s approach is a crisp and exacting one, favouring sharp, intricate drum programming and stuttering samples, but it’s not a sterile environment. There’s a strong human presence to the likes of ‘Sora’, ‘Believe’ and ‘He Hymn’, where anthemic threads of garage and diva vocals leave their unmistakable footprint within LCY’s slick modern soundscapes. They’ve created these pieces as hymns for their self-realised fantasy world, and of course hymns carry a sense of tradition with them.
LCY’s own history within their idiosyncratic culture echoes through their music even as it stabs purposefully forwards into a possible future for club music – one marked out by the less spiritual, more brutalist ‘Bad Blood’. It’s an incongruous swerve in an EP which deals with such strong signifiers, reminding us in LCY’s world, even the most severe of club constructions have the power to save your soul.
OW
Francis – Sabakaruru Emiri (Kabuki Lounge Ace)
2023 has been a fertile year for longtime artists to make comebacks in the form of fresh single magic. This curio from lesser-known production myth Francis (real name Makoto Ori) falls well into that category. The Japanese multi-talent has tried his hand at everything from synthpop to lounge music over the three or so sweet decades that have encompassed his practice. He’s drawn intrigue not only for his proximity to Tokyo pop band Pizzicato Five, but also for his relatively unsettled nature, never quite giving into genre cliches and remaining happily in the melting- pot of Shibuya’s furthest, most oddbally reaches.
But even if we hadn’t prefaced our review with all of the above context, we would’ve still found a lot to say about this new single, because it’s quite unusual, to say the least. One new track with singer Emiri Kano and one solo original adorn the A and B-side, and amount to quirky, kitsch and synthetic ditties, with many of J-pop’s usual hallmarks robotized to an extent that the artists themselves have taken to calling them a Tokyo-endemic tag, ‘elepop’. Sonically, they’re full of the kind of glitzy wonderment we would only expect from two such Shibuya fixtures, but the real intrigue comes from the weird ‘Sessomattio’, which sounds like an acid bossa nova piece deep-fried in a vat of electrified mercury.
JIJ
Fergus Jones has never been limited to formulaic approaches. His sound fits right in on his usual haunt Numbers thanks to a certain crisp elegance to his electro beat constructions, but he also happily heads off piste and makes sure there’s ample space given to deep-space chords, voluminous reverbs and micro-details that edge beyond de rigeur dance music.
On this latest release, he’s made sure there are extended elements of intrigue by inviting some impressive pals to lend their touch to the tracks. The principle elements of ‘Prang’ are pin-prick garage in flavour, from the warping bass and subs to the tightly clipped 2-step shuffle, but around this filigree frame Huerco S is on hand to inject some lenticular magic into the track. From far-away clouds of space-shaping to the subtle euphoria of some chords in the track’s latter half, his touch is noticeable and potent.
‘Sisu’ meanwhile demonstrates Perko’s lack of concern about sticking to club cuts, heading happily into detached ambience with Cucina Povera as a disembodied spirit guide. Sonically, the melodic impulses which punch throughout the track have a metallic sheen which ties neatly to the similar elements found on ‘Prang’, making this a record of two distinct halves which still make sense together.
OW
Hidden Spheres – Tanzen (Rhythm Section International)
Manchester-based production dynamo Hidden Spheres appears to be enjoying his studio time right now, seemingly exploring ever-new sonic territory with each release. His latest work on Rhythm Section International finds him in warehouse-ready form, serving four originals alongside a Paula Tape remix on the ‘Tanzen’ EP. The ‘Club mix’ of the title track takes its time to unfold, steadily building as energetic claps propel lush piano chords and ethereal pads before metallic synth stabs power in with a familiar Detroit melody, the spoken word vocal adding allure to the cut.
A little more sparsely populated, the ‘Mate mix’ offers a sub-heavy take, the lead motif appearing in altered form as it cascades across the floor. ‘Mind Over Mate’ ups the energy, with vintage house organs, mangled vocals and tension-building pads entwined over fizzing drum machine hits. As the name suggests, ’Not Of This World’ is delightfully off-kilter, with oddball refrains darting over more spoken word German vocals as piercing toms keep the tempo. Finally, Paula Tape serves a take on ‘Tanzen’, maintaining the feel of the club mix while elaborating on the bass melody and adding intoxicating counterpoints to enhance the harmonic thrust.
PC
Dyl – Nothing As It Seems (re:st)
Hailing from Romania and pursuing an introspective twist on D&B, Dyl is the kind of artist it’s hard to keep up with, such is his prolificacy. Following on from 2020’s collaborative album with DB1 he returns to re:st with further excursions into tundra landscapes and pointillist beat constructions. At this point the D&B element of his sound is pushed to the back, allowing more half-time measures to dominate over the tracks. The likes of ‘Interpretare 2’ display an undercurrent of nervous rhythmic energy which creates a push and pull against the downtempo beat in the foreground.
Dyl heads even further away from traditional beat structures on ‘Padurea Fermecata’, which instead draws on polyrhythmic pulses pitted against snaking, wafer-thin hats and a plentiful supply of aqueous atmospherics. Placed opposite the snappy, nightmarish throw down of ‘Interpretare 4’, we’re given a listening experience which reminds us to pay attention and be ready for the next surprise. Even when locking into these tougher moments, Dyl’s tendency is towards space and patience, resulting in an overall artistic impression closer to electronica in the vein of Jega et al rather than anything more conventionally considered drum & bass. As ‘Street Lamp’ blooms towards an emotive peak, it’s apparent he’s using the genre he’s established his sound on as a springboard for something more personal, and it’s working a treat.
OW
De-Bons-En-Pierre – Card Short Of A Full Deck (Dark Entries)
Since 2017 Beau Wanzer and Maoupa Mazzochetti have been slipping out greasy gear as De-Bons-en-Pierre, capitalising on their shared affinity for off-key hardware jams in pursuit of a playfully nightmarish sound reliably platformed by Dark Entries. Mazzochetti especially has carved out his reputation as a dexterous, inventive sound sorcerer – his uxy.dosing album on BFDM was an especially mind-bending delight that sounded less in thrall to analogue circuitry and more like a hi-tech message beamed back from the future.
On listening to the fourth collaborative EP from the pair, it’s hard to discern whether the tracks came together as casual jams or very precise compositions. On one hand they’re dripping in atmospheric, soundtrack malaise which paints a vivid picture of vampiric miscreants up to no good in rotting urban hunting grounds, but it’s equally rough and rugged, busting out with the impetus of a rolling studio session where four hands can sculpt the sound according to the wishes of two conjoined brains.
Whether it’s intentional or not, Card Short Of A Full Deck is a visceral antidote to the idea of glum, monochrome techno. From the distorted voices to the laser zaps and constant energy rush, it’s more like watching an edgy sci-fi cartoon from the late 80s, trashy and malnourishing, but also dazzling in its carefully crafted over-stimulation.
OW
Alton Miller – Waitin 4 You (feat Kevin Reynolds remix) (D3 Elements)
Sublime work here from evergreen spiritual house disciple Alton Miller here complimented by a mesmerising rework from Motor City maverick, Kevin Reynolds. Miller has been reliably turning out musical gold for decades now, so his arrival on D3 Elements seems like an effortless pairing of deep house purveyors. Opening track ‘Clone’ bumps along over thick Afro-inspired rhythms, with atmospheric organ drones and nimble synth textures drifting over low-slung bass.
A touch more loosely-woven, ‘All Of It’ sees delicate keys and freaky synth solos intertwine over dreamy pads as shuffling drums drive the groove, before the title track ‘Waitin 4 You’ comes on like a long-lost US house classic. Soul-drenched vocals rise over gorgeously swung drums as breezy chords and spacey synths combine over sub-heavy bass notes. Each of the originals is expertly crafted and steeped in emotion, and yet Kevin Reynolds comes dangerously close to stealing the show with his marvellously deviant interpretation.
Sinister bass undulates over jagged Afro drums as dramatic analogue stabs ride in to lift the energy, the distant vocal occupying mysterious space in the distant twilight. A killer package all told, with something for both soulful purists and heads-down seekers to get excited about.
PC
This week’s reviewers: Oli Warwick, Patrizio Cavaliere, Jude Iago James.