- Earlier this year, Gabriel Ananda delivered Live Series Vol. 1. This time round, things are far more energetic. Where some live recordings call to mind a quiet studio and many careful takes, Vol. 2 is full of club-proven tricks like crescendoing percussion and heavy bass drops. You can almost see Ananda's body heaving back and forth over a table full of gear while the crowd goes nuts below him. "Hey Blop" hinges on a twanging arp—a motif which chains the other disparate pieces together. The bass has a similarly elastic quality, muddling the two together at regular intervals and forming a big, gooey mess. In concert, the two could easily be overwhelming, but sharp hats and claps suck their way out, driving everything else along with them.
On the other side, unrelenting flurries of hand drums form the bedrock for "Give Me Five," which has a flamenco-like intensity. Sunny chord stabs occupy the brief spaces between these taut drum hits, the two working in tandem like the aforementioned bass and arp. Ananda excels at such complementary relationships, his tightly-packed productions often simpler than imagined. The tracks on Vol. 2 are no exception. Even if you didn't know they were created at a club, it's plain that their locomotive strains will work exceedingly well there.
Tracklist A Hey Blop
B Give Me Five