Russian producer Long Arm offers up his latest effort here on Project:Mooncircle, a label which has of late been turning out some stellar modern electronic releases. Organic sees to continue that trend, rolling together jazz samples with tried and true hip-hop tasting composition to produce an album which has it’s own distinct flavour.
Rapid panning jazz drum samples begin ‘Organic’, the dust of vinyl crackles permeating the edges. Blistering rap, courtesy of Technical Development, spits over strummed guitar and stomping beats and clicks. ‘The Ashes’ sees flute and curiously, didgeridoo sampled amongst hip-hop beats and brooding strings, before slipping easily into a cinematic outro that Amon Tobin might be proud of. Graciela Maria lends her sublime voice to the smokey jazz feel of ‘When We Fall’. The vocal sits perfectly in its surrounds, although the drums may have been a little heavy handed. If they could’ve been backed off just a touch, this cut would’ve been perfect. The first of the remixes is up next, courtesy of FiJi and Eugenia Peters. They deconstruct lead track ‘Organic’ and turn it into a blunted downtempo psych trip which slow burns like an audio lavalamp. ‘Letters From the Space (Interlude)’ steps into tasty hip-hop territory, a crisp beat holding it down as sliced xylophones and breathy vocal stutters shine. ‘Letters From the Space feat. Tivanie’ swells perfectly into something that could have been left of Dj Shadow’s Entroducing, dusty drums, harps, strings and trumpets blur together in breathtaking fashion. ‘When We Fall’ gets a remix from labelmate Krts, and is adorned with his trademark shuffle and muted bass, turning the original into a smouldering groove. Daisuke Tanake also gets a turn reworking ‘When We Fall’, and slows proceedings down into an almost sci-fi feel, tiny clicks and whirrs fizzle away like the internals of a machine. An instrumental version of ‘Organic’ bookends the release, and while it sounds the goods, i couldn’t help but feel like I hadn’t gone anywhere, almost as if the other 7 tracks hadn’t existed at all.
This edition features stunning cover art courtesy of Bioniq, and apart from one or two minor issues, this is an otherwise exceptional album. If Russian artists can continue to turn out work of this standard, they could very well be a scene to watch quite closely.
Nick Giles
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