Music Reviews
Alex Jones – Stamp! – Hypercolour
Hypercolour’s had such a sterling year that they’d be forgiven for having the festive period off and making merry on mince pies and sherry. But their relentless work ethic is one of the many reasons they’re topping the year’s ‘best of’ lists, and to close out the year it’s Alex Jones that takes on the mantle himself. As half the brains behind the label (with Jamie Russell) his production career hasn’t strayed far from the label (though there have been outstanding releases on Vitalik, Murmur and Kindisch along the way) and his latest EP confirms his talent for not just picking out releases for the label, but producing them as well.
The title track is a familiar Jones cut of brooding, roomy house built on muscular kicks, throbbing bassline and edgy sonics that provide a diversion to the standard four-four template. Jones’ skill is in removing the listener subtly from their comfort zone, and the female vocal’s incongruity next to the lumbering groove works this perfectly. Shoe Of The Year is a pacier, punchier affair, sounding initially as a percussive houser, but its scrambled vox adds menace and edges it away from the middle ground. With The Hats plays on both the vocal sample and a strong hi-hat to give a distinctive character, drowned in swathes of sound. Closing the EP, Dan Berkson’s remix of the title track is sublime, cutting down the bpms, and transforming Stamp’s nervous cool into a sumptuous, warm groove.
Gavin Herlihy – Endless Feeling – Culprit
It’s no surprise that, as each year goes by, Gavin Herlihy’s production pedigree grows still further. Immersed in electronic music for over a decade, his switch to a full-time music career in the middle of the last decade was always a natural progression, and a succession of standout EPs on the likes of Kindisch, Moodmusic, Cadenza, Apparel and Leftroom have marked him out as a member of a select group at the vanguard of UK’s brimming pool of electronic music talent. Now back in Leeds after a stint in Berlin, 2012 is set to start in similarly lofty fashion with an EP on the consistently on-it imprint Culprit.
At home equally in deep house and sleek techno, Endless Feeling finds Herlihy combining rasping, low-end punch with shimmering chords and licks, building layers of melody and vocals to a limb-wheeling summit in one of his most unashamedly ‘dancefloor’ tracks to date. In contrast, Tell Me What You Need is all understated poise and cool, its simple chords surrounded by wide-angle sonic sweeps and tics, fusing shades of Vangelis to modern electronica, a movie score to a future classic. The Sequence closes an eye-catching EP, its taut, nervous percs and analogue b-line fused with harmonic vocals, an exercise in modern funk that steers subtly away from current trends and shows Herlihy’s growing maturity and skill at the mixing desk.
