- Misty Conditions is a trans-Atlantic project. The duo of Henry Collins and Richard Wilson made their debut album, D'Zzzz, over the internet, shuffling ideas between their respective studios in France and LA. The content is just as international as the method of its production, fusing dubbed out hip-hop rhythms with African percussion and grime atmospheres.
D'Zzzz is grubby as all hell. Its kicks are thickly distorted, its occasional vocal samples are full of breathy aggression and its synths sound like they're being run up against a knife sharpener. It's a monochrome record shot through with occasional bursts of percussive colour, like a flickering neon light at the end of a motorway underpass. This aesthetic is best demonstrated, both in name and in sound, on "Dank," an album highlight full of dubby keys, disembodied screeching and a chopped-up vocal hook ("I have that dank, dank, dank").
There's a pattern here, and it's a very effective one. Polyrhythmic drums nudge up against stark, clipped kicks. A grimy fug evokes the darkest point of an inner city night, pierced occasionally by cut-up vocals, as on opener "Dusco." The aptly titled "Drizzle" adds strung out pads to the equation and dials up the African clatter, coming off like a horror film soundtracked by a kuduro band. "D'Mmmm," meanwhile, tweaks the formula to produce something as full of glamour as of gloom, with silken, pitched-up vocal loops.
As strong as its highlights are, D'Zzzz loses its way when Misty Conditions go off-piste. The noisier doodlings of "Damiana" and "Dilute" feel half-finished, meandering where the rest of the record swaggers. "Drowning" works a bit better, with shuddering lasers slicing through a murk of what sounds like heavily reverbed choral singing, but even this falls dramatically short of the record's best moments. Misty Conditions are at their best when they're at their dubbiest, their grimiest and their most morbid.
Tracklist01. Dusco
02. Drizzle
03. Dank
04. Drowning
05. Dilute
06. Death
07. D’mmmm
08. Demonoid
09. Damiana