Prolific Sydney-based electronic producer Lavurn Lee is best known to many listeners for his preceding work under the alias Guerre, but his parallel outings under the name Cassius Select manage to capture a distinctly more uptempo and dancefloor-based side of his oeuvre. On the heels of last year’s shared EP with Tuff Sherm, this latest 12” EP on Unknown To The Unknown sees Lee throwing the emphasis on treacherously broken rhythms and stuttering textures over four new tracks.
‘He Ain’t Worth’ opens proceedings with a juddering rush through cut-up clattering percussion and arrhythmic snare programming as stuttered fragments of reverb-treated ragga MC yells echo back and forth against the flickering rhythms, in what’s possibly this EP’s most junglist-tinged outing. ‘Crook’ meanwhile injects more of a twisted sense of funk as male vocal samples get contorted and bent against skipping broken house percussion fills, fluid synth-bass runs and stabs of melodic colour, before ‘Joy Mile’ gets darker and grimier, sending vast sub-bass wobbles rolling beneath an ominous web of skittering hi-hats and percussive metallic tones that sound like knives being sharpened. A damn fine EP that’s well worth tracking down.
