- Since Instra:mental split, Damon Kirkham's followed a subtly different path to his former partner, Al "Boddika" Green. Both bring muscularity to their productions, but Kirkham's work as Jon Convex has been less rough and ready, and showed him willing to experiment with deeper atmospheres. Admittedly, Idoru, his first album as Jon Convex, was slightly underwhelming, lacking the focus a long-player demands. But compared to his latest EP, which smacks more of Jamie Jones than Autonomic, that record was laser-tuned.
According to a press release, "drinking cocktails in the sun" on the beaches of Hawaii and Australia inspired "With You." There's no place for needling bass riffs in paradise, it seems: instead, this one fizzes with synths that sit somewhere between Hall & Oates and Hot Creations.. The vocal, which embodies the house tradition of sounding deep while being illogical ("tell me girl / to be with you / makes it feel / so real"), could push the track into tacky anthem territory but instead drags woozily against the beat, stopping it from becoming an '80s pastiche.
His remix as Kid Drama ups the original's flickers of narcotic confusion by warping the vocal into unrecognisable shapes. Melodies that formerly sparkled fight their way through clouds of reverb. As an exercise in 170 BPM Balearic, it's a pleasant thing to get immersed in, but the haziness is too indistinct to linger.
Tracklist01. With You
02. With You (Kid Drama remix)