- The penultimate instalment in Indigo Aera's Lost Archives series—a quartet of EPs featuring unreleased tracks from the label's closest friends—pairs two producers who wear their Detroit influences proudly. Both tracks here channel the Motor City's second wave, the kind of galloping percussion and mournful strings emblematic of Robert Hood and Jeff Mills. Fittingly for artists who produce for labels like Skudge and Deeply Rooted House, those influences are tempered by a distinctly European dubbiness.
"The Flow" is the toughest thing Stephen Brown's put out in a while. Recent releases like Tangent and Chopping Board have seen him dabble in offbeat rhythms sodden in swampy pads, but here a kick and rattling cowbell pound out a straight beat. They're joined in the second half by pads that sound like wind through a keyhole. These are just texture, though—"The Flow" is as pure a percussive workout as you can get.
On "Telergia," Jonas Kopp also shifts slightly from his recent work. Though he employed a similar set of gated synth stabs on "Reject" earlier this year, they're not drenched in the cavernous reverb that colours so many of his productions. Instead the hi-hats dryly chatter, and a beep like a heart monitor bounces between bruising kicks. It's a more intimate sound than we're used to from Kopp, and a deft navigation between subtlety and dance floor clout.
Tracklist A Stephen Brown - The Flow
B Jonas Kopp - Telergi'a