Bass Clef - Moment Only EP

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  • It feels like Ralph Cumbers has got the balance just about right. Here's a man who refuses to take himself too seriously: he's happy to dress up as an astronaut and twiddle modular synths, but at the same time make serious and interesting music that stretches musical horizons. Bass Clef's recent album on Mordant under the name Some Truths invited us into a world of proto techno, where beats were at a premium but gorgeous bleepy melodies were given free rein. On Moment Only, Cumbers wanders onto the dance floor but through the side entrance, using UK hardcore, ragga and sedated disco as his primary references. There are shades of Spooky's breakbeat-techno classic "Stereo" in the spanking chords that dominate "Free My Mind," but for all its ravey tropes—hyperspeed vocals rampage across it—there's never a hint of it turning into a pastiche. The haunted dancehall-meets-8 bit skank of "Oh 2 B In Love" provides a canvas for Cumbers to drizzle some exquisitely intricate drum patterns across it, before he dons the day-glo again for "Where I Keep My Heat." Lumbering stabs clash with milk-bottle tinklings to produce a kind of ghostly rave/disco hybrid.
  • Tracklist
      01. Free My Mind. 02. Oh 2 B In Love 03. Where I Keep My Heat
RA