after a safe and steady run of big, club-slaying house hitters from the likes of bicep, dusky and deetron in 2013, will saul’s aus kicks off the new year with something a little less standard. of course, that’s always likely to be the case when the man behind the music is appleblim. it sort of feels like the apple pips boss and former skull disco dude has somewhat been finding his own new path in the last couple of years following the post dubstep diaspora, and here he hones in on his freshest beats for a while. as is almost always the case with ‘blim, it’s not a solo effort, but rather a collab with fellow west country producer komon, himself returning to the label after a solo outing last summer.
groovy opener ‘jupiter’ is built on deep, trenchant drums that spit out plenty of glistening, knife like hi hats. in isolation, the chords are frankly jarring, brief bursts of nerve gangling sound, but when married to the beat make for a nice bit of malfunctioning machine funk. the intergalactic break down allows you to catch your breath before those drums kick again, and kick they do. on the flip, ‘glimmer’ is a slinky bit of boom-bap house with a rigid and corrugated bassline that kick starts the track over and over. run through with glossy and dynamic chords but muddied with various analogue sounding groans, it will inevitably turn out to be something of a floor filler. it’s closer ‘beach trek’ that’s the most intriguing, though: scattered and irregular claps and percussive clatters litter a doleful horizon and are only held together by the feint traces of drums and increasingly spangled basslines deep down below. it’s a refreshing reprise of some of bass music’s more physical, jerking arrangements and ensures even braver djs will find themselves some bait here.
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