Philadelphia-based electronic producer Starkey (real name Paul Geissinger) has spent the last four years releasing an impressive slew of releases on labels including Werk, Lo Dubs and Keysound, and this latest 12″ follows on the heels of last year’s rapturously received ‘Ephemeral Exhibits’ album for Planet Mu. On the A-side, Jamie Vexd reworks ‘Miracles’, taken from ‘Ephemeral Exhibits’ into a soul-drenched slice of hiphop-loaded dubstep that nicely counterpoints its harsh, reverb-heavy metallic snare creep with a backdrop of weirdly pitchshifted female RNB vox and sheeny urban synths – the entire effect being one of the more impressive examples of Starkey’s signature ‘subaqueous crunk’ approach to date. Over on the flip, ‘Creature’ unleashes the real darkness here, opening with a ping-ponging forest of elastic synth squeals before rapidly descending into chaotically worming distorted synthlines and juddering, asymmetical rhythms – while the brief segue towards more soulful synth motifs towards the end offers a short reprieve from the chaos, it manages to be suitably headscrambling stuff. As a taste of Starkey’s upcoming second album on Planet Mu, it suggests that it’s anyone’s guess as to where he’s headed next.
Chris Downton
