- With its last two releases, EPs from DJ Guy and Bluntman Deejay, Glasgow label All Caps has moved from functional club bangers into more pensive territory. Their newest release, from unknown entity Ekranoplan, is a precision strike in the middle.
Wing-In-Surface-Effect is named for a hovercraft-like vehicle that flies close to the surface, and the EP lives up to its title. It's got a lightweight feel, as if it were made of titanium. Built on a bassy rhythm track that coughs like a rickety engine, "Coil" is a turbulent voyage through fistpump-worthy chord progressions and sheets of staccato synth. The more peaceful "Star Frog" rides slow-motion bass stabs like thermal updrafts, keeping aloft with a beautifully fluid sense of motion. Chugging along with just a tick-tock snare-and-hat combo, it's sparse, begging for something harder to slot in underneath it. (Even just a kick drum would do.) The brightly lit melody could easily be the solar eclipse in a pitch-black techno set.
The EP's brief bookends, "One Mile Out" and "Ground Effect Vehicle," have the same almost-but-not-quite-there feeling about them, and it's tempting to imagine how strong Wing-In-Surface-Effect could have been were it more fleshed out. As it is, it's a slight but impressive teaser for more material from Ekranoplan.
TracklistA1 One Metre Up
A2 Coil
B1 Star Frog
B2 Ground Effect Vehicle