Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Lone - Emerald Fantasy Tracks

Lone started showing up on a lot of people's radar earlier this year because of his association with Werk Discs.  His sound was slow in tempo and gauzy in texture—not unlike label head Actress's music, albeit with more hip hop flare.  Sometime between now and then, someone smacked the blunt out of this kid's hand and gave him some ecstasy.  Lone's sound has grown into a 90s inspired rave-House throw-down with one foot in the warehouse and one foot in the modern UK bass music scene.

Cloud 909 opens Emarald Fantasy Tracks—his latest mini album on his own Magic Wire Recordings—with Lone's familiar barrage of bing-bong rave stabs and it seems things are off to a good start.  4/4 kicks thump, naturally.  Fat snares swipe across the midsection.  Everything is so goddamn swung!  And not the post-Dilla, chugalug kind of awkward hobble.  Lones tracks swagger across the floor with a self assured exuberance that is all but absent in much of the beat-music created in the late-great J Dilla's wake.

Cloud 909 demonstrates a sound that Lone has been exploring for a while now.  He's taken cues from Aphex Twin, borrowing his affinity for vintage synths and long, stretched out melodies that seem to harmonize with themselves.  But where Aphex Twin's fractured masterpieces' synth-lines creep out of some dark paranoid corner, sobbing for attention, Lone's drop from the sky.  The sunny calls rest on top of the beat until the rhythm is so enveloped in hazy joy that it lets go in a fit of hand claps and cowbell hits.

Whether House is just a pitstop along Lone's ever-evolving style, or if its here to stay, Lone has become a producer to watch.

Download the whole EP here. (pw: nodata.tv)

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