- William Kouam Djoko's voice is wonderfully woozy. It manages to make loving sentiments wholly unsettling—see last year's "We Are Your Brothers And Sisters" on Rush Hour, a narcotic stumble through a crowded dance floor where seemingly pleasant sentiments become sinister. There's a similar sense of paranoia in "Man Like Me," when Djoko's far-off cries of "your body needs a man like me" become "feel my body," whispered right into your ear. But the vocal is merely dressing for the disconcerting synths that emerge and then disappear, or the filtered bells that seem to momentarily clash before falling back into key.
If the original is haunting, then Matthew Herbert's remix is an exorcism. Hi-hats rattle like chains, the bass groans ominously, and chimes ring out like distant church bells. It's a constant barrage of sound from all sides, and wholly engrossing. "Mystic Niger" starts calmer but builds through warbling pads and pitch-shifted vocals into a chugging house thud that's anchored by a thick low-end and punctured by blasts of white noise. Compared to the angst elsewhere, "Africane Autumn" is pure fun, a mess of bongos and synthetic brass, and a promised "big bang" that never quite comes.
Tracklist A1 Man Like Me
A2 Man Like Me (Matthew Herbert Remix)
B1 Mystic Niger
B2 Africane Autumn