- Toronto's Stuart Li can do almost any style of 4/4 dance music and sound like an expert. He showed a near-perfect grasp of deep house on his Motional Response LP for Still Music, while his NonPlus releases had a rigidity borrowed more from techno. The first release on his new label turns towards yet another dimension of his sound, with three gristly analogue workouts full of spit and vinegar, a welcome change from the smooth synths of Motional Response.
Much like the work of his friend Boddika, the three tracks have a hardheaded feel, with no polish or obvious sound design flourishes. "Innershell" is one of the lumpier tracks of Li's career, running on an almost-broken beat that pits piano trills against a scruffy bassline that threatens to burst into full-on acid. "Frack" is a much twitchier affair, where the snares snap and shudder outside the bounds of the kick drums. The stuttering is only lent more madness with a smothering chord progression that twists itself in knots over the chaos below. Rounding things off, "Earwerm" has the steamrolling techno feel of his NonPlus work, only more aggressive. The kick and snare combo sounds more like a foreboding march than something to dance to. Add snarling hardware jams to the list of things we can expect Basic Soul Unit to deliver.
Tracklist A Innershell
B1 Frack
B2 Earwerm