- There have been several points in David Kennedy's career when he could easily have flicked on cruise control. The house collaborations with Appleblim and Midland in 2010 could doubtless have run and run; the low-slung, 808-heavy productions of the following year even more so. But in each case, Kennedy has done what so many producers wouldn't dare to do: cleared out his sample folders, banished familiar habits and started afresh. This self-released EP feels like the product of just such an aesthetic purge. Of course, there is some overlap with his past work. A liberal use of breakbeats was prefigured in "Quivver," and "Figment"'s glistening synth work finds its prototype in "Piston." But compared to the drum machine mosaics he's been peddling over the past year, REM works to a different tune entirely.
A lot of this is down to structure. For a long time now Kennedy's productions have benefitted from a masterful handling of form, where every element, however obtuse, is precision-tooled to ease us through a series of breakdowns and drops. These tracks, by contrast, seem to hover in stasis or shuffle cautiously through states of intensity. In the simple but surprisingly affecting "Figment" we are left suspended in beatless space, while "REM" floats pensively, its occasional sub stabs and flickering hi-end clearly not intended for dance floor consumption. "Gridlock" and "Crimson (Beat Ritual Mix)" up the ante a little. The former features grainy breakbeats and filtered chords reminiscent of Anthony Shakir, while the latter is a relative of "Quivver" only with far more withheld. In each case there are no pyrotechnics and little by way of hooks; their charms instead are quietly hypnotic.
Tracklist A1 REM
A2 Gridlock
B1 Figment
B2 Crimson (Beat Ritual Mix)