Wednesday 14 September 2016

The SubmitHub Roundup, Vol. 4

The submissions train keeps on rollin' on, and it continues to keep exposing me to stuff I wouldn't have otherwise gone out to hear. This one came to me billing itself as minimal which I normally shy away from cos it doesn't tend to be my bag, but I gave it a go and was rewarded in due course. I was digging the intro from the get go but I wasn't expecting the vocal side of things to crop up and that only made me fall harder given my well documented love affair with treated vocals. It makes to whole thing feel like a hazy half remembered retro experimental tune a la Laurie Anderson. Which I suppose is only fitting given the cover art:



I was surprised more folks hadn't jumped on the sadboy electronic train after James Blake started to get big (or maybe they did and I just didn't hear any of it). There's certainly a little bit of Blake on display here for sure, though packaged with some more uplifting electronics for accompaniment rather than the disparate, cold touches as heard on The Wilhelm Scream and such. I do think that some of the slight vocal distortion would worked well here too, but at the same time that might have made 'em fade too much into the background, might be somethin' t experiment with in future either way!



Rounding off with even more hip hop stuff. I've always liked some brass in my hip hop ever since I heard Gorillaz's Rock The House, and Teddy Bear delivers in spades. And the artwork is on point again too. No idea if it's sampled or original but either way it'd feel right at home on a Mr. Scruff production, and the final hurrah starting around 2:30 brings about the end in spectacular fashion.



-Claude Van Foxbat

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