- Maya Medvesek, a London-based DJ whose production career began in earnest as 8Bitch, recently renamed herself Nightwave, and the new guise fits her technoid bass music productions far better than her original moniker. Fast-paced and futuristic but never aggressive, Medvesek's sonic interest is midnight music that washes over a crowd and pulls the evening forward. Her first release for another energetic startup, Svetlana Industries, has moments that are sure to heat up an evening, but one senses Nightwave herself is still just warming up.
Pre-name-truncation Joy Orbison hangs heavy over "Feel": in terms of sonic quality, Nightwave matches its forebear, but I wish she had the same knack for structure that makes a record like "The Shrew Would Have Cushioned The Blow" a permanent fixture in many bags. Put simply, it's too short. "Night Bird" is unquestionably the jewel of the EP, a classy nugget of quiet synthetic Rhodes chords and insistent low-end. Tiny yet fully formed, it's surprisingly and unassumingly dangerous—a bomb that fits in your pocket. If Nightwave is a rookie, relatively speaking, it shows on the B-side. "You Are My High" drifts unwisely into trance clichés and stalls outs. "Bit Pony" reassembles the Deep Medi back catalog without its soul. The Unknown To The Unknown's Distal-ish remix of "Night Bird" turns in something more obviously intense than of the original, and while it's not bad, I think the original has more to offer.
Tracklist A1 Feel
A2 Night Bird
B1 You Are My High
B2 Bit Pony
C3 Night Bird (Unknown To The Unknown Drunk Mix)