- IMYRMIND's latest EP is said to be partly inspired by Kickboxer, a hammy but entertaining Jean-Claude Van Damme film whose ponytailed villain, Tong Po, lends his name to the German's Tartelet debut. It'd be an awkward reference for most grainy, sample-stuffed house records, but the physicality of "Tong Po"'s drums, which rain down like dumbbells thrown from a third-floor window, make the comparison stick. The title track's woozy notes and crumpled fragments—tin pot hi-hats, cartoonish crashes, a gummy funk bassline—also do their share of the heavy lifting.
The rest of Tong Po's hip-hop- and jazz-infused house is more conventional, and yet it's a cut above its peers. IMYRMIND pieces together tracks with an intuitive sense of rhythm and contrast, evidenced in the way rough cymbals and faded piano crash against "Wanja 9000"'s smooth Rhodes melody. More than that, IMYRMIND builds rich textures with small, sometimes junky parts—his approach suggests countless hours spent hunched over second-hand record bins. "Number Seven"'s unsteady drums and frosty jazz will inevitably draw favorable comparisons to Flying Lotus. But "Upturn" upstages its neighbour on the B-side, with thick swabs of Latin jazz and a viscous synth submerged beneath drums, trumpets and strutting piano loops. In just over six minutes, IMYRMIND creates a carnival atmosphere.
TracklistA1 Tong Po
A2 Wanja 9000
B1 Upturn
B2 Number Seven