- On his Not So Much label, Mosca has recently explored an intersection of house, techno and electro that has an especially live and druggy sound. 2015's NSM004 and this year's Cedar Wood State did some dangerous work in that area with texture and groove, and the latest addition to the label's streak is Franklin De Costa's Jolted EP. The longstanding German producer's third record of the year almost seems tailormade for Not So Much, full of the dissonant machine-funk and crazed electronics Mosca has favored. The wonky atmospherics sound of a piece with the minimal scene, but the rhythms are more chunky, the energy more brash and less meandering. (Only "SSSooo" indulges in its murky whorl for an extended period.) And as on Mosca's recent records, De Costa sounds like he's using hardware to create mutating arrangements on the fly. The results are irresistible.
That doesn't mean, however, that the EP will please every dance floor. Weird and fidgety as they are, these tracks are constantly trying to derail any hypnotic effects. The detuned bass notes in "MLDK" never stay still long enough to fully complement the smacking, halftime beat, and "SSSooo" seems to favor randomness—in structure, melody, rhythm, you name it—over sleek decisiveness. But both have a filthy groove waiting for those on the lookout. "Purple Train" is more conventional with its 119 BPM bob, belching bass notes and dubwise soundscape, which De Costa of course pushes further into discord as they go. Anyone willing to follow him won't regret it.
TracklistA1 SSSooo
B1 MLDK
B2 Purple Train