SolPara:
Swing (Other People)

SolPara’s
five-track EP is one that is really satisfying track to track but
fairly varied in its 28-minute runtime. Some of it is quite lush
while at other times it’s downright tracky, devoid of much melodic
sensibility at all. And sometimes it shifts gears from one to the
other in the same track, as is the case with opener “The
Descent,” whose prologue of undulated pads shifts focus
eventually to circulate around a steady, light kick drum pulse.
“Vitamin D,” the first more immediate track halfway through,
gradually gets more reverberated, veering from something
club-oriented to something more haunting and slightly sinister. Its
distorted pads lend it a totally different mood than one might
presume when the track begins, but this kind of maneuvering is both
clever and successful.

The insistent claps and squiggles of “Short
Circuit” provide a healthy counterpoint to the more buoyant title
cut, while both the opener and closer are more lush and mellow. The
title cut is one of the most straightforward in terms of dancefloor
convention, but I really dig its slightly underwater, obscured vibe.
All of its percussion stabs and details sound oddly filtered and
tweaked, but the track is otherwise quite spare, which lets every
little detail shine in its murky glory. “Seahorses” works
as a brief epilogue as well, a beatless experiment that feels like a
well-timed ending to the proceedings. Fans of more sublime leftfield
techno and house like The Sight Below, Gas, or Farben ought to check
Swing out.

Buy it: Boomkat | Bleep | iTunes | Amazon