earinfluxion

earinfluxion

26 July 2012

Brogan Bentley: Brogan Bentley EP (Leaving)

I’ve been digging this EP from Brogan Bentley, an odd fusion of dance music and lo-fi bedroom production. It has enough of a swagger to qualify as dance music certainly, but often the production is spacious and reverbed out, often lacking a beat altogether but with all of the nods toward the dancefloor without fully engaging it. A steady bob of the head may be all the artist has in mind, enjoying these sounds on a nice set of headphones. “Ask When I’m Night” is a prolonged tease with its persistent chord stabs and SK-1 style vocal snippets. It recalls some of the sample trickery of Burial or the Tri Angle camp, using obvious repitching and distortion of samples to provide a pseudo-refrain in an otherwise instrumental track. “Irish Sky” has more immediate percussion, nice and crisp, but it’s a curious combination of fast hi-hats and half-beat claps, as if it can’t decide whether it wants to be an anthem or a smoky slow jam. “With Him” is a bit grimier in production and all of its little triggered samples, while the rhythm section picks up a little 2-step trot and a fat bass synth does most of the legwork to move things forward. Overall it’s a cool mix of intimate, warm production and ideas that could just as easily translate into big club tracks. But somehow their miniature nature here feels just right to me, better experienced late at night on a good pair of headphones.

Buy it: Boomkat | Amazon | iTunes

Get a free download of “Ask When I’m Night” at the Leaving Records site!

earinfluxion

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