OL - Scape Border

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  • Moscow's Oleg Buyanov is yet another producer whose attention has been wooed away from cross-genre music towards scuffed classic house. But on Scape Border, for R&S subsidiary Meda Fury, it seems like he's taking that source material directly instead of just borrowing its ideas. The results sometimes sound like a young hip-hop producer chopping up house records. As such, the sounds on Scape Border are almost too familiar. Some of these experiments turn out great, while others feel like surface-scratching cliché. "Podumay," a slice of dreamy house that contrasts its easy pulse with pressing synth work, falls into the former camp. The same goes for "Around," a hallucinogenic take on tribal house with sticky delay effects. But "Lum Edit" is rusty and rickety with a sputtering bassline that can barely pull the track along, and "Rimms" is so deconstructed it loses focus, like a bunch of rhythm tracks playing independently of each other. The Chicago lip service is most obvious on "Myxa," an otherwise punchy tune with a vocal sample so hackneyed it betrays a certain naiveté on Buyanov's part. It's only on "Melt Down," the EP's one concession to OL's hip-hop-inspired past, where he truly sounds comfortable. But even when he's out of his depth, Buyanov has an intriguing way of putting things together.
  • Tracklist
      01. Lum Edit 02. Around 03. Rimms 04. MYXA 05. Podumay 06. Meltdown 07. X Pleasure
RA