- Having hammered out plenty of booming, loopy house/techno bangers since their debut album earlier this year, Skudge have decided to shift the focus of their eponymously entitled label to someone else. Techno stalwart Stephen Brown is the man to get the nod for the first Skudge Presents release, with the Swedish duo's simple aim "to put out records from artists we support and music we truly believe in."
"Mini Mood" initially pairs huge thudding kicks with percussive glitch and electric sci-fi synths and all elements circle around each other without much real form. When a second kick starts to land, though, the thing becomes nicely swung and seems to surge forward as a result. From there, the untethered background synths spiral about to add an edgelessness to the whole thing while ticking 808 sounds add more intricate up-close detail. "Horizontal" is more industrial and scratchy with scraping percussive sounds grinding against each other, eventually growing smoother with the arrival of some bleary eyed and future-facing melodic smears. A hiccup rises and falls across the face of the whole arrangement, and you eventually find yourself gazing through the gauze-like textures to a blissful deep space utopia out the other side. It's a world related to, but generally more nebulous than, any Skudge have themselves inhabited to date.
Tracklist A Mini Mood
B Horizontal