- Mood Hut looks to China for its latest release of chilled-out, pastoral dance music.
- Xiamen producer Knopha is both a surprise and a shoe-in for Mood Hut—an unusually global choice who shares a love for white space with the Vancouver crew in his groovy, chilled-out productions. That approach comes to groggy life on "Fizz," the opening track of Kwong, which sprawls out horizontally like a RAMZi tune. This one moves in a staggered pattern somewhere between dubstep and house, with lots of delay, dubby stabs and daydreaming melodies, with just the right amount of reverb and effects that it sounds like the drums are splashing in a mild rainstorm. In other words, a perfect old-school Mood Hut track. The humid, thick atmosphere continues on "The Light," which switches to an ambient jungle rhythm—twitchy brushed drum samples that dance underneath a gorgeous vocal from Fishdoll. The whole thing is impressionistic: the words are barely comprehensible, the rhythm colours outside the lines just like the vocal performance. It's both sedate and deceptively energetic.
There's another lovely vocal turn, this time from Voision Xi, on the guitar-and-mallet duet of "Corundrum." That one builds into an instrumental version which sounds like a Mood II Swing dub of the original, nailing down the floaty bits with a stern but funky hat-snare-kick pattern. The resurfaces on "Mizo Le Goût," where rapidfure percussive accents float over halftime kick drums amidst a cloud of cutesy vocal snippets and other random sounds. All over Kwong, the rhythms are strong and propulsive, but never the focal point. Instead, Knopha paints a pastoral landscape where the drums provide a gentle heartbeat, the force behind the beautiful flora and fauna that populate the EP's spacious corners.
Tracklist01. Fizz
02. The Light feat. Fishdoll
03. Mizu Le Goût
04. Corundrum feat. Voision Xi
05. Corundrum