Subeena - Neurotic

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  • I discovered Sabina Plamenova with the fantastic Solidify EP on Planet Mu, which was one side haunted soul (featuring the vocal talents of Jamie Woon and Om'Mas Keith) and another side of hazy, self-medicated dubstep. Earlier this year, she started her own label OPIT, releasing a pair of charmingly home-made-sounding originals and then dropping a bomb in the form of the abstract hip-hop beats of Milyoo. Where one goes from there, your guess is as good as mine. Subeena seems unsure as well. The third release on OPIT is a pair of vocal tracks, recorded on what she admits was a cheap mic. Nasal and defiant, like a subdued Patti Smith, her voice mystically wafts by when kept at bay by the beats. But on a track as fantastic as "Neurotic," where synths curl up like wisps of smoke and converge in asphyxiating clouds of distortion, vocals feel like unnecessary window dressing. The glittering "Wishful Talk" is better in this regard, partly because its electro-tinged instrumental track is simpler and Subeena's vocal more fully-realized, winding around complex melodic tangents with ease. Egyptrixx and Ghosts on Tape hop on for remixes of the latter, with similarly varying results. The Ghosts On Tape remix is at best functional, assaulting the tight, glitzy construction of "Wishful Talk" with bland percussion samples and ignoring the vocals; unlike "Neurotic," there's no savvy instrumental to back it up. Egyptrixx's remix of "Wishful Talk" stands tall over the EP, a seven minute odyssey of throbbing, tinnitus-inducing house that undoes anything on his previous Night Slugs EP in terms of sheer glowstick-waving abandon. Plamenova's vocals are kept to a sample, barring a stunning breakdown where they unfurl into the song's pleading melody, fighting with dissonant screeches before the rather seedy party resumes with aplomb.
  • Tracklist
      A1 Neurotic A2 Wishful Talk B1 Wishful Talk (Egyptrixx Remix) B2 Wishful Talk (Ghosts On Tape Remix)
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