about a year ago i interviewed – very – young dj and producer youandewan. he already had a couple of auspicious tracks under his belt for fledgling leeds imprint magicbag (including an ep with dop) but it’s his latest outing which really confirms what i initially thought: he got skills.
it’s a very assured collection of four different tracks which all have a clear affinity with the dubbier, sketchier, deeper and dustier trenches of berlin’s underground house and techno scene. from scb to scuba, basic channel to dettmann, it’s all in there. opener ‘alone in berlin’ is a brave and successful exercise in slo-mo and deep house tension which tumbles along, fully restrained, at a very teasing 109bpm for seven escapist minutes. it always feels as though it’s going to bubble over and kick on but never quite does, and because of that has you in the palm of its hand from start to finish.
next track ‘jigsaw’ rushes from the off with closer, tighter drums; a slinky percussive skip and controlled but busy background synths adding a lofty ceiling. in time, the bassline breaks free and swells out below the mix and the synths expand to encompass the whole track. it’s when things get deconstructed and the crisp, surging-into-deep-space-a-la-hot-flush bassline is allowed to pulse that you really begin to look forward to hearing it on a dancefloor, though.
‘crosseyed & painless’ is simple, dusty and swinging house music which recalls kassem mosse as much as ame’s best, whilst sandy ep closer ‘eidolon’ is the same simple construct but after many more drugs, and comes from a much darker corner of the club. it’s heavy, dry clapping, militant and –owing to an expertly used forlorn female refrain in the latter parts – melancholic music which resonates with a deft, real-world roughness. you can expect more of the same from a super-solid remix the scot’s recently done for midland, or catch him perfecting one of his subtly shifting warm-up sets at mint, leeds, where he is resident for techno types system. either way, this shit is reaaaaal good.