PAUL COUSINS — THOUGHTS IN THE ETHER

⌾ LISTEN TO PAUL COUSINS, THOUGHTS IN THE ETHER ⌾

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Written "as a soundtrack to daydreaming," London-based producer Paul Cousins track 'Thoughts in the Ether' is all-encompassing. It toes a balance between warm pianos and gossamer threads of synth that tick with icy intent. It evolves organically, like the moment of pouring a drop of milk into the darkly glimmering black-gold depths of tea, or how smoke curls through the air.

"The scene changes reflect the different thoughts we have as we let our mind wander," Cousins says via email.

The gentle touches of piano, its chords and descending notes, serves as a heartfelt metronome to the shifting sounds. It may be intended as the soundtrack to daydreaming, but the slow piano melody seems to step into a fog of melancholy, a gentle realisation of deeper feelings when the mind steadies itself. The rhythm of the natural world floats past us, insubstantial; conversations, cars, convenience stores drift by; and inside, the slow tick of ourselves.

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• 🔔 Purchase, stream or otherwise admire 'Thoughts in the Ether' in hypertext stasis over on Bandcamp.
• 🔔 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfDABxWSF0Y There's a film to accompany 'Thoughts in the Ether'. Created by director Edward Harber, it's "an aerial study of the North Sea from Happisburgh in Norfolk, documenting a week in the evolving appearance of the water."

  Cousins adds: "I wanted the video to take place from a floating viewpoint, and to be similar to the phosphenes we might see when closing our eyes for a few minutes."

• 🔔 Inspired by Russian artist Kazimir Malevich, the track artwork — following the form of videos on Cousins' Instagram account — was created in collaboration with London-based graphic artist Signalstarr.

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☟ Paul Cousins Internet Presence ☟
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AKB — SAKTMODET

⌾ LISTEN TO AKB, SAKTMODET ⌾

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Though it's possible to be fooled into thinking that AKB is a thinly veiled tribute to J-pop megagroup AKB48, it simply spells out the initials of Swedish musicmaker Anna-Karin Berglund. Names aside, her track 'Saktmodet' (loosely translating to "gentleness") is a gloriously organic, living-and-breathing piece of ambient music.

The song is a crooning collection of woodwinds, and the crash of resonant, lightly phasing piano (reminscent, in texture at least, of 'Canticle' by English band These New Puritans). It came to life while working on her 2020 album. Marianergraven, which was more focused on "mechanically profound sounds and sound worlds."

"This song," Berglund tells yes/no via email, "was a respite to work more with traditional instruments like piano and clarinet."

'Saktmodet' is an illustration of hot and cold: sharp, icy sounds ping out, and there's the accidental rustling and whispering of breath, all cushioned by rich, warm sounds of the clarinet and the fading, post-percussive glow of piano chords. More than temperatures, however, more than indoors and outdoors, it's the vital, close-at-hand feeling of the instruments that give this slice of ambience a real sense of human effort and emotion.

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• 🔔 'Saktmodet' arrives via Swedish label Lamour Records, originally featured as a bonus 7" bundled in with AKB's limited edition Marianergraven. You can listen to the track on Spotify, if you like.
• 🔔 If you want to hear more from AKB, it's possible to stream and download Marianergraven from Lamour Records' Bandcamp.

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☟ AKB Internet Presence ☟
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🐣 TEPLICE – BRIGHT FUTURE

⌾ LISTEN TO BRIGHT FUTURE BY TEPLICE ⌾

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From the very beginnings of 'Bright Future', with its curdled kazoo crunches and icy shards of synth, there's something in the sound that wrestles with the title of Teplice's track. Sub-bass tumbles along and a mellow miasma of plasma synth is ambient in the background, seeping into your skin when it all suddenly sinks into a mire of doom come chord-change.

The vocals do the hoping, literally. "I hope... / For a bright future" Berlin-based, London-born Teplice opens the song, unaffected and in a tired monotone. Later, insomniac lines – "I lay awake at night / Thinking of the moon / Sleep will greet me soon" – rise up and look likewise into a positive, albeit near, future. Alongside hoping is questioning, a haunted interrogation at the heart of this song like a mantra.

In harmonies that conjure spoken nonchalance like spoken spells under spectres that twang and lilt, something vocally like The Cranberries or maybe Warpaint, the existential inquiry curls out like smoke: "Is anything out there / Is anything out there / Is anything out there / Is anything..."—cut short at a moment of sudden discovery or resignation of futility. These vocals especially expel warmth, in tone, in rhythm, that makes the song bounce.

The simplicity of the lyrics stand the sentiment and imagery of up as monoliths, symbols and vignettes in a nocturnal frame of frozen electronica, driven by an unstoppable marching beat: the slow, officious plod of time. As ghostly as it is a real, true voice, 'Bright Future' wonders about the world outside—not outdoors, but outisde what you know, in something that summons the choice of music in Twin Peaks (inhabiting a realm similar to Rebekah Del Rio's 'No Stars', for example).

All the lilting vocals, all the sense of falling off the face of the Earth. And yet by the end of the track, the density of the track has lightened, the clouds begin to part; minimal and angular, 'Bright Future' is still warm and human, still hopes.

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• 🔔 The product of working at producer, label owner, radio show host E.M.M.A's Producergirls workshop, this track is taken from Teplice's upcoming Bright Future EP, inspired, she says, by "contemporary feelings of angst, stagnation and uncertainty" as well as wanting "to capture a sense of time elapsing at a personal, social and historical level."

  "In this sense," she continues, "considering how individual lives intersect with historical moments, my grandma has been a massive inspiration. [...] It was important to me that she was represented [in the artwork]."

• 🔔 The Bright Future EP is set to be released on Pastel Prism Records on 18th October, and marks the inaugural release on the label. Pre-order it on Bandcamp.

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👉 Read our interview with E.M.M.A by tapping these words 👈

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☟ Teplice Internet Presence ☟
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🐣 DOWNSTATE — HOW TO FIX AN IBM FAX MACHINE INSTRUCTIONAL GUIDE 1996

This one is a scenic soundscape, a canvas painted with old tools, vintage equipment employed in the creation of something new and something beautiful, something that summons an elsewhere. In the description of the track on SoundCloud musicmaker and creator of this particular track – the descriptively titled 'how to fix an IBM fax machine instructional guide 1996' – downstate wrote: "I made this with the drum sounds from a dying roland jv30 and the korg M1 digital synthesizer." At points it's like breakcore made with an old drum machine, which in fact might be exactly what it is, with the percussive clacks and metallic zings zipping and trilling with glitch intensity and wheezing retro quality.

There is that newness to it, painted with old brushes and old paint. But then there is this golden-age sound to it, and it probably has a lot to do with the warmth of this, the analogue warmth in the thick chords that bubble in their slow singular refrains, as much as it has to do with the quite literally gleaming melodies that ache and twinkle zither-like above. And in this classic sound is perhaps an inherent leaning towards cinematic, scene-setting, VGM-style (thinking Earthbound, Streets of Rage, for instance), the expansive, exploratory feel of it. downstate also mentions that they probably "could have cut the hiss from the broken keyboard but i like it sounding like shit its authentic." But that hiss, that decayed grey noise hovering throughout, does indeed add to it, does add authenticity, gives it the swathing static of ages gone by as a backdrop.

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• 🔔 You can download all and any of Downstate's tracks from this Wordpress that they've set up as an archive.

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☟ Downstate Internet Presence ☟
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🐣 TONIO GEUGELIN AND MOGLII — SCHILLERIZE

The smoothness, the channels of caramel that flow wonderful in this track, the untouched pristine minimalism of it, all of this, the popping percussion tumbling along like light-up spheres gently donning into one another. There is just such a tract of these delicious percussive noises going on here, such a catalogue of textures, a gentle curve of creation, cuteness in motion. German musicmaker Moglii and producer-violinist-singer Tonio Geugelin's organic wonderland of a track is powerful in its pastel hues, a vision of the potential intricacy in dance music, in electronic pop music, beyond formulaic future bass and beyond the esotericism of IDM, into a world of warmth and easy intrigue.

Toy instrumentation might not be a true part of the duo's brand new track 'Schillerize' – referring to the process of creating an artificial iridescent sheen in crystals – but there is certainly an element of it present; wind-up toy sounds creak and trickle in the background, ping-pong bloops ding and pop, the sort of sounds you might hear from a VTech electronic learning product, or maybe more like a retro-leaning drum machine tom; percussion like pearl necklaces or bags of marbles jostle and ticker-ticker, big handclaps count out the hidden footwork energy at the heart of the rhythm, this natural world, this flora of beat ornamentation.

Producer Moglii speaks about the track: "It lives through the combination of the organic electronic beat with the acoustic beauty of a violin and vocalchops to get an unique soundscape," he tells us. "Therefore violinist and singer Tonio Geugelin was the perfect partner for this track."

Vocodered vocals, sometimes layered lightly with faint pitch-shiftings of itself, sing out in syncopation, eschewing the typical synth chord or piano syncopation of electronic music, with the synth instead snaking throughout, with not a build-up or a drop in sight, gradually rippling harder and heavier towards the end, the whole track feeling like a distortion of the glassy crystalline surface of a turquoise brilliant body of water.

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• 🔔
• 🔔 'Schillerize' is out today on BonFire Records.
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☟ Tonio Geugelin Internet Presence ☟
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🐣 CHLOE X HALLE — USED TO LOVE (MOZADO REMIX)

Half sleekly clinical space-age white with reflective smooth screens, half organic heartfelt body and muscle and historical small streets and cafes, this track is a clear split, a love-letter to real humanistic flavours told with synthetic electronics, the hip shuffle of salsa bossa nova patterns exude through the syncopated piano that pulses cosmopolitan below the wonderful velvet vocals that skim warm richly throughout. These are the voices of sister duo Chloe x Halle, this track being a remix of their song 'Used to Love', a gorgeous a cappella composition filled with sultry lilting lines thick with harmony, solo parts powerfully cutting through and soaring gutsy above these choral comforters, impatient spoken-word "ok…ok…" and handclaps perforating the languor with potential energy.

But musicmaker and serial remixer Mozado, clearly seeing the promise of these incredibly endearing vocals, as well as the non-instrumental setting, turned this from an album intro light and airy as that time between asleep and awake, falling into slumber in the warmth of the sun, takes this feeling and through rhythmic permutations of Latin sashay and ticking trap brings out the bubbling energy of its heart, the powerful vocals now washing through the thudding beats that Mozado punctuates with luscious percussion chiming pots-and-pans tinkering and the warmth of the plasma synth matching the richly layered vocals, the hefty sub-bass, the dynamic of it all, this instrumental sliding along like a cloud-filled dream as much as it bumps and whips with pumping blood panache, this remix a vital reaction to the raw honest beauty of the original.

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• 🔔 Mozado's remix can be downloaded for free via this little link here.
• 🔔 'Used to Love' is taken from Chloe x Halle's debut self-released mixtape, The Two of Us. You can listen to this collection of goodies on YouTube. In addition it can be streamed or purchased variously via this link.

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☟ Chloe x Halle Internet Presence ☟
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☟ Mozado Internet Presence ☟
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🐣 MEN I TRUST — YOU DESERVE THIS

It's the atmosphere here, the atmosphere whipped up with the warm synth chords, their heavenly modulation, the uncomplicated simplicity of it, the watery refrain of the guitar thin and tactile above the thick haze of the track, and then there's the swaying motion of it, the slow oscillation as the sharp clipped snares and hi-hats tick-tocking finely against the amorphous bed of velvet sounds and the aching slow-slow jwang of the bass. There is a feeling of the comfort, detached but comfortable. Alone and a part. The vocals linger with their layers languid and lost in dislocated dreamlike longing.

Created by Montreal-based three-person musical unit ("Jessy, Dragos and Emma") Men I Trust, 'You Deserve This' contains within it something very akin to the insta-nostalgia conjured by the homely wilderness of the Twin Peaks theme by Angelo Badalamenti, rich but not extravagant, universal but not cold, not meant for you but nor for anyone in particular. It is a wandering feeling, formless, a freefall into this cyclical formula, the feeling of going around and around without realising it, the seamless repetition of sound, the sparse groove, the ascending-descending melody, slowly softly slowly softly up and down the stairs, head full of chill, heart full of warmth.

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• 🔔 'You Deserve This' can be downloaded for free from Men I Trust's Bandcamp.

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☟ Men I Trust Internet Presence ☟
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🐣 INSTUPENDO — PLAY PALETTE

The nebulous wandering sounds at the heart of this track hint at more than just a chilled atmosphere. There is a warmth to this, a ghostly warmth, a warmth of things past and remembered and cherished, something like a loved one coming back to watch over you in their afterlife—almost mournful, almost joyful, this track is clouds pierced by sunlight, sadness sprinkled with glad feelings, it is bittersweetness. It has the touching title of 'play palette' and it was created by instupendo.

Heady nostalgia swirls heavily around the glass sides of this track like a wine saved and savoured. The wonky decaying synth chimes like an ancient musicbox opened and watched and listened to and almost tasted, memories effusing from it, and then the beauty of that piano, dusty and half-dilapidated, the touching ornamentations and flourishes of recollection, the exquisite details of broad emotions. 'play palette' takes us by the hand, driven along by the smart stoic beat, unceasing clean with snapping clarity, the structure of it providing that grounding of reality as the mists of time whirl round our fingers and we try to hold on; the angular frame of the window as we gaze out of it.

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• 🔔 This comes from instupendo's recent Friend of a Friend EP. You can listen to this on SoundCloud but you can also stream and download it from various other places.
• 🔔 The artwork for the EP, with brushstrokes and details as indistinct yet bold as the shifting shadows of memorial echoes in the track itself, was created by Kacper Abolik. This artist has, amongst other things, received attention due to his vibrant soulful paintings being featured on A$AP Rocky's instagram.

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☟ instupendo Internet Presence ☟
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🐣 MICRONISM — ENGAGING CAUSELESS MERCY

The muffled roar of rumbling sub-bass, the pulsing vitality of it in organic waves—we could be inside a giant, swallowed up by a gargantuan something and dwelling there. The bio-industrial feeling of the track is evident. The whooshing breeze of sound like the inner workings of this huge being, the organo-mechanical movement of tendons and pneumatics. Acid synth twinkles elastically, delaying and echoing into the distance and creating an illustration of the remote and unfamiliar. The kicks arrive and thud with vigour, heartbeat of these futurist flavours, urgent and interior and solid.

But the alien nature of 'engaging causeless mercy' is remedied by New Zealand musicmaker micronism, balanced by rich chords lilting with horizontal lounge cool, a prescription of chill that quenches the fire flaming in the innards of the gooey magma golem. This new laid-back sound becomes scattered with rhythmic hi-hat shuffling rapidly, rollicking and twisting until the track's finale where the chords become hollower and longer and the beat and other noises fall away and we are left still vibrating still warm from the grand intensity of the track and its unrelenting living body, floating now in this slumbering stream of sound.

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• 🔔 This track first appeared on micronism's 1998 album, inside a quiet mind – "one of New Zealand’s most acclaimed electronic albums" – which was created entirely without computers and only outboard equipment. It has been recently rereleased by Wellington-based label Loop Recordings and can be purchased as a limited edition double LP or digitally on Bandcamp.
• 🔔 The album was originally released by Kog Transmissions, on a very limited CD-only run, where it was mastered by Chris Chetland. He is also behind this re-mastering. "Somehow or another," says Denver McCarthy (the brain behind micronism), "Chris managed to make it releasable 20 years ago, and now he has given new life to the album by a further smoothing of the edges, and polishing it to a level of shininess where it even sounds good in my ute."
• 🔔 fyi: "micronism (plural micronisms). A theoretical microorganism living in the ice or under the surface of Jupiter's ice moon Europa." (Wiktionary).

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☟ micronism Internet Presence ☟
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🐣 RUIDO — INNERVISION

We follow this one through its dusty drums and through its swirling synth pads and through its plumes of smoky desert noise from start to finish in a blissed out chillmenture of analogue sound and minimalist groove. And what a thing to follow, to be sucked into, what a thing to wash away like soothing white noise the craggy escarpments of the mind and lure you into a cyclical nowhere, no-thought, just simple music and motion. This is 'Innervision', the debut track from London musicmaker Ruido, as basic as monotone, as gloomy greyscale but also as stark and effective.

And it's warm. It's a warm journey. How at first the sounds seem cold and hollow but how over the duration of the track it transforms from lonesome sound to a fuzzy blanket, a comforting beatscape. We are warmed first and foremost by its rich sounds, its lavish textured synth chords, secondly by its gloopsome columns of bass toppled and bulging bounce beneath the steady house heartpump of the beat. Thirdly, how the piano, the loops of piano, play out a melody fluttering of a rainy city sky at night with the droplets caught dreary drizzle in dim streetlights, but how simultaneously this warms with its muffled tones. 'Innervision' is an introspective jam, a detached weary wide-eyed soundscape, the watchful gaze of yourself on yourself as you attempt to fathom your own thoughts.

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• 🔔 Ruido's wonderful track arrives courtesy of Bristol label Fly Boy, and it's also available to download for free so that's nice.

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☟ Ruido Internet Presence ☟
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A. G. COOK – WHAT I MEAN

Have I written about anybody from PC Music here on YES/NO yet? Hmm. Not sure. Not that I remember. So that probably means no. But that is by no means a statement against them. I am quite strapped for time most of the time so I'm not able to write about everything that I like. It's often just what I'm in the mood for on that day; for instance, from the last 3 days I have a list of 30 or so songs, some of which I may never write about.

I sometimes wish I were multiple people – it'd be easier to do things that way. Especially if I could have one avatar for doing particularly boring things like… no actually, every experience should be experienced by me. It's my life, after all.

Anyway, A. G. Cook, London-based producer and the final boss of PC Music, has shared some music with us via Annie Mac's Free Music Mondays (meaning this is a free download too – back of the net). Mr. Cook and his label have gained a ridonkulous amount of attention this year, mainly from withholding information and generally making quite groundbreaking music; the sonic equivalent of shock-and-awe tactics; shocking audiences with "unlistenable" (to some) but expertly produced tracks before awing them with ones that are more legible, more conventional – something that might be like an exclusivity clause to 'weed out' people without open minds.

Maybe? Hmm. This is just a crackpot theory by me, however, and must not be paid attention to.

A. G. Cook's latest offering is called 'What I Mean' and it puts me in mind of a roaring fire inside a warm homely room as winter blusters outside in the cold – an oasis of heat in a frozen world – joyful vocal samples skilfully chopped and placed on a patterned paper-chain of melody, ornamentations above the diamond-clusters of synth, flickering above the neo-groove of the squelchy bass and robust, simple beat. It's also laden with vocal samples, a female ooo-ing and some male, I dunno, words and stuff, all serving to decorate this lightly lilting plasma surge of squeaky clean French-Touch-esque music. It doesn't exactly sound anything like any of his other tracks, and why should it?

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☟ A. G. Cook Social Media Presence ☟
SoundCloud • Twitter • Tumblr • PC Music

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KOLOTO CEDAR SHED

Well here we are in the grey assault of January with all its endless rains and distant prospects and cold fronts. And here I am again, after so long. A thousand years later, I'm back. Or am I? Who's to say? Out of anybody, I should be saying it but I don't think I have the mental capacity to say it or confirm anything at all. Especially the concept of being "back" - which leads to the inevitable heckle, "were you ever even here?" (Does anybody want that?) - so it's a dangerously assertive issue that I skirt and avoid. The only thing I can confirm is that YES/NO is an entity that will continue. My writing will continue, here and elsewhere.

That finished, I would like to say that Koloto is BACK! Haha, no she's not "back" actually cause she never really left that much, but I have been looking out for some of her new music and here it is. It's like 28 days old which is unfortunate for me because I did see it back then but I didn't have the heart... Anyway, Koloto is a musicmaker from Canterbury (that's in England btw) whose real name is Maria Sullivan. Her music is typified by contoured soundscapes that roll and jut, coloured with glitch-led percussion, and her latest joint, 'Cedar Shed', is as atmospherically glitch-soundscapey as you can want.

Beginning with warm chords shot with scrambled percussion - a build-up of atmosphere for an intro, which leads into a loud arena of beats and melding sounds. Each element grows more rich towards the end, when the slap-click of percussion finds live-setting snares - amongst other drumkit sounds - to ground it, whilst the melody becomes more flighty than ever, soaring up to a grey blanket of clouds with choral thickness and intensity.

This one follows a similar pattern to her previous song, 'Kill Screen'; it goes through Koloto's style of sectional layering, starting life as just a forerunning phantom of what kind of towering beast it ends up as. Turning up the heat from minimal, to moderate, then monstrous, it's a cool style of transformative trackmaking that keeps the heart - and feeling - of the original idea throughout.

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Like Koloto on Facebook
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Visit Koloto's site

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LAZY INTERVIEW #21: DCUP

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← #20: SUPERFOOD #22: VULKANO →

So just a little bit over a week ago I wrote about a music producer from Australia called DCUP – in particular his latest song 'Magic'; it is a sizzler of a track, filled with the atmosphere of a hundred prospective summers and Latin heat in all its samba-slash-disco glory.

It's not the first I'd heard of him though: a few months ago he put out a song called 'Don't Be Shy', something that tickles your nostalgia bone with its warm retro vibes. Released in the form of the Don't Be Shy EP – containing, amongst others, ace remixes by Wave Racer and Boys Get Hurt, it was a fab introduction to the peripheral tastes and music of DCUP.

Little did I know, and maybe you didn't either, but it was DCUP, along with fellow Australian band Yolanda Be Cool, behind 2010 hit 'We No Speak Americano'. Being a portion of the brains behind such an intensely catchy song so widely popular with people of pretty much all ages and cultures, Mr DCUP intrigued me so I sent over the Lazy Interview questions – he was kind enough to indulge me, and thereby you too, with some answers.

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Who are you? Where are you from? What do you do?
I'm Jim. I'm from Ohio. I'm a traffic engineer.
How weird would that be?

No really, I'm Duncan MacLennan aka Dcup. Born in Sydney, Australia and I'm a music producer, DJ, and tantric love-maker.

Why did you decide to start creating music?
Curiosity. I grew up with a Casio keyboard in my room. I think it was my brother's but I borrowed it one day and kept it. How different things could have been ;)

As a mid-teen, I listened to electronic music and wondered why I couldn't do that on my Casio. Then a friend mentioned a computer program called "fruity loops" and the rest is history.

How would you describe your sound? What makes you and your style stand out?
A few key things. I often have very strong musical elements in my tracks. I often have solid bass and rhythm. And I love to experiment and create my own sounds, so that gives me a unique aesthetic also.

Is there a perfect time and place for listening to your music?
I would say no. It's all good. Probably just don't listen to it before bed.

What inspires you most when writing a song?
Melody. That "hook" that everyone talks about. I'm obsessed with that piece of a song that you sing in the shower, or in your head. In writing, I'm always looking for that – then my love of huge bass and beat embellishes that.

What is your most memorable musical experience?
Probably the moment I made the little sax line on sampler for 'We No Speak Americano'. Simply because I've told the story so often.

What are your favourite three songs at the moment?
Fark, this changes every day.
It may surprise you, but I love techno and more electronic styles.

Top 3 this minute are:

• TCTS - 'Do It Alright'

• Format: B - 'Magic Button'

• Claude Von Stroke - 'Lay It Down'

Who do you most admire in the music world?
Calvin Harris

In your opinion, what is the future of music?
Songs. Still just plain old songs.

What's the future of your music - what do you hope to do next?
As you may have guessed from my top 3, a very electronic project (still with songs).

What, aside from music, is most important to you?
People. The family and friends I have, the girl I love, the strangers on the street. It would all be worthless without them.

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They say curiosity killed the cat, but if you are a human, curiosity almost always seems to be a good thing – especially in conjunction with creativity and all its trappings. It's crazy really, to think that something as seemingly small as growing up with a Casio keyboard in your bedroom would lead to you becoming a brilliant producer of music that people the world over are able to enjoy. Like DCUP said: how different things could've been indeed.

But as it stands, things aren't different and this guy has been able to share his love of making music, and in particular of spreading the joy of catchy melodies, with anyone who wants to listen. Being obsessed with the "piece of a song that you sing in the shower, or in your head" – as DCUP says he is (and as you can kind of tell from his Top 3 songs of the moment) – should mean that everything DCUP touches, in a musical sense please, springs to life with a memorable sheen that sits, or rather dances, in your head for a long time after that first listen. It's something that keeps you coming back to the same song and dosing yourself with the same pleasure that engulfed you when you first heard said song.

As such, I'll be looking forward to DCUP's latest project. The breed of music that he creates is currently one of my favourite sounds, warm and dripping with not euphoria, but rather definitive satisfaction of living and being alive in the "now" – and we all need that affirmation sometimes. But lastly, whatever way you approach it, or however you'd like it remembered or immortalised, a song is a song and that is why they're so strong, so set yet free, so familiar to us all.

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← #20: SUPERFOOD #22: VULKANO →

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Like DCUP on Facebook
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Visit DCUP official site
Follow DCUP on Twitter
Watch DCUP on YouTube

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JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE SUIT & TIE (SMOKI REMIX)

Wow I feel weird today. A mix of being slightly hungover with an added general out-of-sorts feeling, morose kinda, maybe it's something to do with the shitty weather and getting up too late so I see only a few hours of sunshine before the day turns to evening – well, I say sunshine, but it's just grey. Grey grey grey. Gets a bit stupid after a while. Bring on spring, that's I say: Bring. On. Spring.

Anyway, all that aside, here's something I've been meaning to post for a long while now. Ever since this person messaged me on SoundCloud, and I listened to their track, I thought, "This is nice!" and I've gone back to it every once in a while for a listen, always putting the actual writing-up of the track on the subconscious back-burner. Now, however, we're here. This is it. It is a remix from an artist called SMOKI of Justin Timberlake's comeback hit 'Suit & Tie'. (If you're wondering, this image is the one SMOKI picked to accompany the track – what on Earth is that animal? A sloth?)

Based in Worcester (a place in the UK; pronounced "wuss-tuh") and self-taught as a producer since August 2012, SMOKI (real name Sam Oakey) shows off what is clearly an inherent talent in this remix – either that, or he did a LOT of self-teaching. Beginning with plasma blasts of vocal sample and warm hollow synths, percussed with delayed woodblocks and clicks as well as the occasional heavily reverbed clap, we move quickly into the bounding beat with its clusters of kicks and disco hi-hat that stays with us for the rest of the song. Alongside the organ-like synths follows the beam-like bass, booming subtly from the lower depths of the track.

Stopping in all the right places for a breather, allowing for slight changes in dynamic, like the use of different vocal samples as well as busy additions to the beat - in the last third, for instance, a shaker gets added to the beat for added fidgetiness - the track is a warm and future thinking piece that takes the bright vocals of Justin Timberlake's original and puts them to use in much different surroundings. It's perfectly chilled house and it's very nice. I would like to hear an original from this guy, for sure – then again, I'd like to hear more remixes from him too. Hoorah!

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Listen to SMOKI on SoundCloud

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