- Hype Williams may be no more, but neither of its members appear to have let the split set them back. Dean Blunt's heart-hurt confessionals have earned him growing acclaim. Inga Copeland's dabblings with dance forms have kept a lower profile, but they're no less interesting. Back in 2011, a self-titled EP for Rush Hour captured the spliff-dulled drift of post-rave consciousness. This year's Don't Look Back, That's Not Where You're Going featured production work from Scratcha DVA and Martyn—a bold step towards higher def, though the timid fragility of Copeland's voice didn't feel entirely comfortable in its new surrounds.
Copeland's latest collaborator hails from closer to home. John T. Gast has a production credit (as Henny Moan) on Dean & Inga's Hyperdub swansong Black Is Beautiful, and his bric-a-brac sample aesthetic and homespun dub stylings owe a lot to the pair (a recent mix of his even opened with a voicemail message, Blunt-style). As such, Copeland is on familiar ground here. "UKMerge" is ugly, bit-crushed digi-dub, its beatbox percussion growing ever more frantic as it proceeds. The parched sirens and clotted synths of "Strict" induce a state of low-level panic. There are shades of footwork in its rolling kicks, but the way those rimshots and snares wheel across each other has a grace of its own. In both cases Copeland remains, as ever, unflappably sultry, her sparse vocals grist for the dub-delay mill. These tracks don't have a huge amount to say, but they say it in fine style.
TracklistA UKMerge
B Strict