- Herva's music has long been in flux, sometimes changing style from track to track. On his recent Hyper Flux LP, the Italian producer managed to turn "flux" into a style of its own—a beguiling jumble of sounds and ideas, drawing on two decades of dance history and a spread of studio tricks. This mini-LP for All City warms to the theme. "Smania" is an Italian word for restlessness or a craving for something, and the music—a freewheeling collision of live playing and blockwise sequencer arrangement courtesy of Herva's "one man band"—captures the feeling nicely.
If you think this sounds hectic, then you'd be right—the better moments come with some kind of balm to soothe the confusion. The EP ends this way, with the twinkling "Kaleidoscopic." It also begins there, on the title track, in a fog of shoegaze guitars, which sit oddly next to UK hardcore-style drums. On "Wavtobin," processed piano or guitar loops gently, oblivious to the percussion meltdown going on around it. Tracks without this softer element are harder to digest. Herva has roots in the Ivory Coast and has spent time in the capital—"Abidjan Traffic," a relentless cacophony of breakbeats, whistles and car horns, is about as pleasant as gridlock on a tropical day. On "Bien," breakbeats and jazzy chord samples jig brightly but awkwardly. "Afro Sweep" might be the most broken of them all, a colourful avalanche of sounds with little to grab onto.
TracklistA1 Smania
A2 Abidjan Traffic
A3 Wavtobin
B1 Bien
B2 Afro Sweep
B3 Kaleidoscopic