- Soda Plains is a global sort of producer, whose biography mentions periods spent in the West Midlands, Berlin and Hong Kong. His music has the feel of someone who jumps from place to place and style to style, picking up bits and pieces along the way. Rushes is his debut release—following a killer all-originals mix for DIS Magazine—and he throws UK funky, tropical house and a bunch of other styles into two jam-packed tracks.
"Rushes" is the highlight, with an intense barrage of percussion cushioned by what sounds like a MIDI fiddle playing a jig. A skip between any number of regional dance musics (think kwaito, calypso and UK funky), it keeps going and going until it's a hectic mess of stuttering drums and strings. Continuing with the theme of cheap synth instruments, "Not Tonight" focuses on pan flutes that go berserk between more contemplative passages. The flutes' gaudy, synthetic feel makes them sound a tad generic, but they're at least insistent. And if the DIS mix is anything to go by, he's got even better material on the way.
Tracklist01. Rushes
02. Not Tonight