813 – Recolor (Activia Benz)

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813

It’s been around a year since we last heard from Moscow-based electronic producer 813 (real name Goryachev Alexander) with his Spectrum Riff EP on Donky Pitch, and this latest seven track 12″ EP on Activia Benz sees him continuing to fuse elements of hip-hop, rave and bass music together with an impressive, almost magpie-like level of dexterity. As with his previous work, there’s distinctly colourful sci-fi soul / rnb aesthetic at work here, with opening track ‘Fantasmo’ calling to mind associations with Hudson Mohawke as bright rave synths arc against booming hip-hop rhythms and fanfare-styled arrangements and pitchbent vocals creep in the foreground, before ‘Charger’ locks straight down into coiled grimy rhythms, clicking snare rolls riding against ominous synth bass and almost gamecore-sounding synth horns, in what’s easily this EP’s most juke-touched moment.

Elsewhere, ‘Elastique’ pushes the day-glo rave angle, sending bright bendy synth riffs and pitch-shifted female vocals rolling against a clattering backdrop of footwork snare build-ups, before ‘Pretty Mornings’ tosses a thick dubstep bassline and glittering programmed percussion against flickering samples and a curiously Laurie Anderson-esque synthesised vocal effect. Impressive and eclectic stuff that sees Alexander making his mark alongside considerably more high profile peers.

Chris Downton

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A dastardly man with too much music and too little time on his hands

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