Yor - Rave EP

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  • The tempos and 4/4 beats on Yør's Rave EP inch nascent Dutch imprint Purple Maze back towards traditional techno territory, but it's still as distinctive a record as you'll find in the racks right now. "Rave," at 115 shuffling beats per minute, isn't so far off from what Kassem Mosse is doing, if a bit housier, with gritty drum machines and elegiac Rhodes. It's suffused in hiss and pushed forward by an indistinct grumble; I'm reminded of the sense of desolation Raime conjures, though here it's tempered into a warmer, friendlier sort of melancholy. Paced at a similar tempo, "Golden Boy" nevertheless feels more upbeat, thanks to a jacking groove and buoyant chords, tumbling like a trampolinist in slow motion. What might take a few listens to pick out is a strange rattle corkscrewing through the high end. It's a tiny detail, but it makes the track, tugging it ever so slightly off its axis. The final track is the tour de force. Ten minutes long, "2712" feels like two, maybe three tracks mashed together. It opens with a low drone, a swirl of voices and a crackle suggesting boots in snow; two and a half minutes pass before the first kick drum drops, making it the perfect mixtape opener. (Almost too perfect: it sets the mood so well, you'd feel like you were cheating.) With the 4/4 kick, it grinds ahead like some fusion of Sandwell District and Newworldaquarium until, improbably, a buzzing chord progression takes the fore, straight out of Moodymann's playbook. It thumps on like that for a while, all spilled beer and needle fluff, before easing out the way it came in.
  • Tracklist
      A Rave B1 Golden Boy B2 2712
RA