Buzz can bog down an artist, but it's not particularly easy for audiences to contend with, either. How can we really hear an artist's music through all that noisy chatter? Dusky's Calling Me—by a London duo whose music's been rinsed by everyone from Pete Tong to T. Williams—is just the sort of record you hear about before you actually hear it. But once you do, you'll quickly be too out of breath to be interested in conversation. Bassy, straightforward and absolutely crawling with earworms, Calling Me answers the buzz by cutting right through it.
Expansive yet pulsing and raw, the title cut is what you might find if Scuba peeled back the neon-and-glitter veneer from his last year of productions. "Muriel," found only on the vinyl release, is more manic, its bass jabs and high-impact handclaps battering you toward a knock-out of an ambient breakdown. On "What I Do," the digital exclusive, a simple vocal—"Hold me, what I do, what I do"—emerges from the throb, at once softening the sound and heightening Dusky's urgency. All three sounds are about as light on their feet as any music this slamming could be—a collection of big tunes that aren't interested in being anthems.
