- You'd be hard-pressed to find a city more obsessed with coffee than Melbourne. It's therefore no mystery why Johan Elgstrom, a Swedish expat and resident of eight years, decided to call his new label Short Black. Its debut record comes from a local DJ, Matt Kennedy, who made the EP last year as part of his finals at university. He also documented the process with a blog.
The blog is a neat look into the music-making process, something that is often inscrutable for listeners. We learn, for instance, that the drums in "Blue Eyes" come from an old breaks record. And that its Juno bassline doesn't sound the same as the old Larry Heard tracks Kennedy was trying to emulate. ("But that's OK, I don't think I'd want it to be identical.") Nevertheless, the pad-filled "Blue Eyes" is a decent replication of Heard's trademark warm vibes.
The remaining three tracks also lean heavily on samples, but do so in good taste. The funky swagger of "Taking Flack" isn't too far removed from a typical Andrés cut, especially when the breathy vocals enter. "Nesting" and "Together At 2am" feel more modern, alternately channelling pure Zen vibes and quasi-tribal bliss, even if they both contain beats. Karl O'Connor recently said his first project was "completely and primarily me trying to copy my heroes," and clearly there's a bit of that going on with Kennedy. But his tracks don't sound like mere rip-offs, suggesting he may have bigger, more original things ahead of him.
Tracklist01. Blue Eyes
02. Taking Flack
03. Together at 2am
04. Nesting