EP Review: Slipstream / Pressure's On - Estate

Out later this month, this is the first release on Minneapolis' Bass Nites Recordings to appear on BlackPlastic.co.uk and it features local three-piece Estate, with remixes from Dirty McKenzie, DCUP and Sloslylove.

Slipstream / Pressure's On is a double a-side showing off Estate's funk and house influenced pop sound. They've toured with Yelle and Ellie Goulding amongst others and on hearing their sound it's clear why - this is polished, clean electronic pop. The band make a point of highlighting its appropriateness for both the dance floor and home listening, and it is unashamedly aiming to cross-over.

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Slipstream / Pressure's On - Estate

Slipstream opens, a slick melodic number with yearning end-of-summer vocals, a crisp bass line, sparkling disco melodies and a series of warm pads. It's a little clinical, but the warm production and that bass make it a pretty enticing soundtrack to beers by a sunny pool. The vocal is fairly incomprehensible but in comparison to some of the populist EDM flooding the market state-side this is pure gold.

Pressure's On is a little funkier, but still fairly horizontal, with a loose bass line, snappy drums and filtered vocals. The synth melody picks out a soft melodic patter amongst the reverb of the percussion that gives the track a cool, relaxed feel.

The Slipstream remixes struggle to keep up with the original. Dirty McKenzie's Flutestream remix layers the vocals over a chugging funk bass and hands over the centre stage to a flute solo - neither do anything for me. It's a little campy but more importantly not really any fun.

Also remixing Slipstream is DCUP, who does what DCUP is known for, with the Australian taking the filtered disco / crunchy techno thing popularised by Ed Banger a few years back. It's a chopped-up, funky take on the original - unfortunately what it achieves in catchiness it loses in originality.

Finally Sloslylove gives Pressure's On a Ballearic overhaul - guitar licks emphasised, atmospheric chimes added and soft, off-time drums providing the smallest sense of forward momentum. It's the more successful of the mixes and helps Estate lose a little of that slickness that currently stops them from being great rather than good. ​

​Slipstream / Pressure's On is released through Bass United Recordings on 25 March.

EP Review: Tahiti Love EP - Phil Gerus

Another slice of winning alternative electronic melodies courtesy of DhARMA, this time from latest signing, classically trained musician Phil Gerus.

Phil Gerus' Tahiti Love EP is a trippy kind of love. Filled with loops and dubs and chill wave shoe gazing, it's both melodic and textural.

The title track rides heavy, looped hip-hop sounding drums whilst sunny eighties synths slice back and forth. The opening section, roughly a minute-and-a-half long, is perched halfway between one thing and the other. It's only when the melodic keys come through that the track feels at ease, a glimpsed slice of paradise sandwiched between smart urbane cool.

Second track Have To Say Goodbye is thick and slow like treacle, caramelized bass poured over the vocals, smothering them in opaque, cloudy dreams. It's the sound of being incommunicado - voices held at bay through the sheer density of the substance surrounding them. It's an explanation of departure that feels like it never quite got through.

Polpette provides a dreamy remix of Have To Say Goodbye to close the EP. It's considerably less thick, but punctuated with shuffling, fuzzy percussion and staccato melodies that maintain the theme but acts as a counterpoint to the slower origin.

​The Tahiti Love EP is out on 15 March through DhARMA, check it out via Soundcloud below:

Stream: Flexin - Masters In France

Flexin is the new single from Welsh six-piece ​Masters In France. The band are currently unsigned but this single is set to drop on 4 March with an EP planned for July and an album in the works for 2014.

There's a tight ​electronic funk vibe to this - clean production and straight lines abound. It's a nice take on the dance influenced indie sound of Hot Chip, Phoenix and LCD Soundsystem and I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for more.

Keep an eye on Masters In France's Facebook​, YouTube and Soundcloud pages.

Album Review: Total Folklore - Dan Friel

Total Folklore is the aural equivalent of licking wasp flavoured candyfloss and swigging it back with a broken glass blueberry slushy. Dan's basically playing it cutesy whilst also sticking a pen knife in your ear.

I summarised the way Friel's music made me feel back when he first put 'Valedictorian' out for your streaming pleasure last year. None of the intensity has dulled on this long-player. The resulting chaos is a cacophonous musical George's Marvellous Medicine of sounds pulled together to send you doolally.

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Total Folklore - Dan Friel

Friel's vision is an album inspired by urban life, triggered by long walks through the Brooklyn and the world of the commute. Tracks are punctuated with sounds Friel recorded on walks through the city, brief moments representing the pauses in city journeys - moments inside a pachinko parlor or watching kids play basketball.

Friel clearly associates the city with chaos and noise - his effects pedals and noisemakers make that clear. Total Folklore is like a psychedelic-love-letter to a city, and it's shaped by abrasive punk and written like saccharin chip tune. Starting with 'Ulysses' Total Folklore slowly grinds it's gears and rises up, constantly unfurling additional scale when you always think it can't go on. At almost 13-minutes long, scale is one thing 'Ulysses' can't be accused of lacking.

That opening track makes up almost a third of the album's length, so the album's structure itself feels like an additional attempt at confrontation. Dan Friel rushes to get through the rest of the material - only two of the remaining 11 tracks extend beyond three-minutes. It feels a little bit like the boy who has unwrapped one  Christmas present and just can't wait to tear them all open, too excited to slow down.

The ideas also loop back on themselves. 'Scavengers' is another take at the core melody of 'Valedictorian' but with more bass, for example. There are a series of rapid moments on this album - the grit and bubblegum of 'Thumper' and rising crescendo of 'Badlands' - but each feels like a the result of some heavily distorted Chinese-whisper of the last.

If there is one thing besides noise that Total Folklore communicates it is rapid and uncontrollable excitement, overstimulated and over-amplified. In today's world of cynicism and reservation that's a little bit refreshing. It might give you a nosebleed but one thing Total Folklore doesn't do is leave you without an impression.

Total Folklore is out on 18 February through Thrill Jockey, available to pre-order from Amazon.co.uk on CD and LP [affiliate links]. Stream and download the track 'Thumper' below:

EP Review: Driving Me Wild - Kahwe

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Driving Me Wild EP - Kahwe

Driving Me Wild has moments that recalls the feeling when you walk into a club, building from snatches of noise and a quiet bass track. The big house piano that rides in late on into the first minute of 'Anything' captures that sense of rounding the corner and meeting the dance floor. Those keys drop, the room is in reckless abandon and everything changes.

Kahwe is 20 year-old Joe Cowie but this release would probably have you believe he has significantly more years in his record box than he does. Cowie's production work is based primarily around garage and 90s house but he manages to bring those two genres together without the spirit of either conflicting with the other, and at its best, the EP captures the very feeling of clubbing.

'Driving Me Wild' is a deep, a tightly focused house track with elements of soul in the vocal. The slick electronic bass seemingly bends round corners, creating a surprisingly melodic feel that provides a bedrock for the warm pads Kahwe throws at this track.

Despite a few retro touches the music on this EP comes off feeling surprisingly modern - the skittering beats and rap samples on 'Anything' adapted to suit the empty-pipe echoing bass noise. It's both respectful of the past and unafraid to experiment.

Final track 'Yew' is much more laid back. Whilst it retains a relatively uptempo rhythm the fuzzy sounds and blissful break create a very different atmosphere to round the EP off.

Driving Me Wild is released through Anjunadeep on 11 February, available to buy from Beatport here. Preview the EP below: