- Elegance and emotion in dance music is a tricky thing. There's something to be said for the stately, sure, but not when it comes at the cost of vitality. That's essentially what happens on the debut collaboration from Leeds producers Elkat & Moleskin, whose "Hurt" seems to aim for Burial-esque emotional signifiers with sub-heavy physicality but lands somewhere closer to awkward hesitance. On first glance its crisp synths lend it a nice glossy coat, but it's almost as if its quest for surface-level sheen has left it with an acute case of anemia. Throw in an obvious, clichéd vocal sample and a melody that sounds dangerously close to off-key, and you've got yourself a tune more likely to confuse a dance floor than set it on fire.
London producer Optimum's reinterpretation of the track's tunneling bassline and snappy hip-hop snares adds some colour, but he's still trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, and that nagging off-kilter feeling bleeds through his new framework. Brighton's Donga & Blake succeed most by completely demolishing the original and constructing a chunky house tune that barely resembles the original, more like something that would come out on Donga's own Well-Rounded, all techno-swung kicks and bits of the phased melody of the original wafting through the cracks.
Tracklist A Hurt
B1 Hurt (Optimum remix)
B2 Hurt (Dongo & Blake Ruff dub)