- It took a few listens to make sense of Brian Durr's last EP. Much of Salience sounded like a radio tuned between stations, the smeared samples and stumbling beats jostling against one another rather than sharing the limelight. His next EP is even more puzzling. Durr has always combined styles in intriguing ways—lately, UK rudeness and a lo-fi house slouch—but here he swills his influences together into a thick, bewildering soup.
On "Mbielu," the effect is compelling. Its core seems to be a crackly ragga sample, whose rapidfire chatter and dub sirens are looped into mirage-like shapes. The drums form a juddering stepper's rhythm, slogging patiently through waist-deep puddles of hiss and static. Soft pads enter near the end, but they don't deliver a resolution. "Bionic Marabou" is similar but lacks the cryptic appeal. Its chords sit way down in the mix, ceding the spotlight to spattered microsamples in an entirely different key, while the muffled 4/4 tussles with a drum loop playing at a different tempo. At the end, the kick stops and the drum loops clatter on for a few seconds, as if Durr finally got his radio tuned.
Tracklist01. Mbielu
02. Bionic Marabou