Svpreme Fiend - Killer EP

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  • Anyone using cyclical metallic beats and ghostly vocals these days is bound to get the name Burial thrown at them. Most of the time, it's justified. But Burial wasn't the first to employ the aesthetic he popularized and he's not going to have the last word on it either, at least if producers like Svpreme Fiend have anything to say about the matter. Svpreme Fiend is a young producer out of New York snatched up by London's Local Action label, and he makes nocturnal 2-step that can't help but recall Burial. But the music here seems far more indebted to Burial's predecessors, the clean and snappy sound miles away from that producer's fog and rain. Svpreme's music is choked with melancholy and fear; he uses sampled vocals because he can't bear to speak, vocals that sound like they were drafted in from places of unspeakable sorrow. It's a sort of desperate, nearly hopeless strain of melancholia that's on display on his debut EP: The pads on "Deluge VIP" are overwhelmingly defeatist, and the sampled breathless panting that follows behind the skittering beats is unsettling to say the least, as the track literally takes a breather before breaking back out into its drum-led blitz. "Killer" starts things off with tinkling bells that quickly get caught up in the track's violently vertical percussion, as pitch-shifted moans twist and wind their way around a hushed mantra, like the ignored chants wafting out of a mental asylum. Something akin to a chase scene, "Fervor" turns the vertical pressure horizontal for a sprint chased by dramatic synth melodies and a lurking bassline, while closer "Downfall" finally slows things down, opening up some space for those same wispy vocals from "Killer" to float back in; but the feeling is one of unease rather than resolution. The way Svpreme folds drama and tension into his music is astounding, especially since it consistently avoids predictable melodies and progressions. Each of the tracks here are only around three minutes, but length is immaterial when they have this way of indelibly stamping themselves into your memory. Whether it's out of fear or love, you won't forget this music—or this incredibly promising producer—anytime soon.
  • Tracklist
      A1 Killer A2 Deluge VIP B1 Fervor B2 Downfall
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