- Following up from a split single with Mickey Pearce, Martin Kemp returns with a full release on the Blunted Robots imprint, a label that seems intent on gleefully housing London's current crop of hybrid garage producers. It's impossible not to compare Kemp to his older brother, Brackles, especially when the inspiration and detail of their tracks are both of a certain quality, but where Brackles takes his melodies high into the octaves, Martin focuses more on building a truly subliminal driving groove, letting his bass work flesh out the drum skeleton.
"After the Night" works as a great introduction to Kemp's work, layers of perfectly planned percussion pattering over a genuinely interesting fusion of eerie lowered alarms and white noise that gets coloured by bubble noises that chime in time with the careering synth stab that cascades over the mix. It's all about the way he programs his bass though, letting it wheel up one second, and then pulse quickly the next.
"Aztec" absolutely thrives on the drum pattern as well, jumping off the kick drums into the clattering snares, cowbells and snatched congas while Kemp swells his melody around the back of the beat, letting it pan and shift around the mix before a few of the chunky bass notes make their frequencies fully felt. Kemp is constantly letting the track breathe, manipulating the bass through the scales so that it drives the beat, wrapping it all in subtle stabs of keyboard that jump back and forth. It creates a juttering melody that jerks limbs joyously, without any kind of malice.
Tracklist A After the Night
B Aztec