- The UK duo dive into East Coast club music with typically inventive results.
- It's hard to pin down Ivy Lab. Their discography covers everything from high-energy drum & bass to glitchy experimental hip-hop to rumbling wonky halftime. In 2022, they released Infinite Falling Ground, a project that really rounded out their sound with a tender, downtempo touch—something fans had been craving more of since the release of their softer Stars and Fidget EPs in 2019 and 2020 respectively. But even with that in mind, they manage to surprise. Following their late 2023 Demon Dust EP, which gave longtime listeners a glimpse into their first East Coast club-inspired tracks, Ivy Lab continue to test how to blend their distinct UK sound with American fare even further in their latest five-cut EP, Mild Snake.
"Look Away" and "Monsoon," the two lead singles from Mild Snake, incorporate classic club elements. "Look Away" has a siren-like "WOOP!" vocal chop, while "Monsoon" goes even deeper with bubbly claps and cracking whips. Even so, club music is typically catchy—these songs are a bit harder to follow along, and harder to dance to, as well. That's not to say they aren't enjoyable—they are. The weirdness lends to Ivy Lab's unpredictability, but less to their dance floor-readiness, which is what I assume they were aiming for in this EP.
With "Kik Bak," Ivy Lab hit the nail on the head. The track is a prime example of the duo's genre-hopping madness. It has that raw, hard-hitting energy and those puckish synths that give the duo their distinctive yet unpredictable production style, all on top of a quintessential Philly club drum pattern. The song first urges us to follow the bounce through the arpeggiating vocals, but the drums finally hit at around the 40-second mark to really hammer it home. Mild Snake isn't the perfect follow-up to the nearly flawless Demon Dust, but songs like "Kik Bak" are a testament to Ivy Lab's ingenuity.
Tracklist01. Kik Back
02. Look Away
03. Monsoon
04. N.V.T 01
05. Mild Snake