- Soda Plains belongs to a wave of producers currently threshing the globe's club styles in search of promising new seeds. Much of the music issuing from this scene is rich with ideas but a little rough in execution. The Berlin-based Soda is no different, but he has a particularly fine way with rhythm, giving his music a scatty, unstable quality. In melodic terms, his Kickbacks EP for Liminal Sounds isn't as striking as his colourful DIS Magazine mixtape, Firmiana Simplex, nor as gaudy as his 2014 single for Black Ocean, with its steel drums and pan pipes. Its palette of chilly, minor-key melodies recalls Future Brown's chrome-plated rap, particularly on opener "Chandemic." But once again, it's the drums that pushes Soda's music into a world of its own—as on "Brisance," where scalpel-sharp snare rolls slice through the dense detail in the latter half.
Detail is a big part of Soda Plains' productions. His musical ideas often play second fiddle to the furious edits that skid across their surface. As intensity levels rise, the effect can be weirdly similar to speed-demon styles like breakcore or hardstyle. "Revolving Door" thunders along at 160 BPM, getting its ankles tangled in a succession of barbed-wire cut-ups. "Shuttered" seems more spacious at first, but there's a blistering double-time groove lurking behind its Holly Herndon-esque vocal stutters. The bursts of speed get more pronounced as they go on, until you're not quite sure whether the whole thing still hangs together. It's unlikely that Soda Plains is too bothered.
Tracklist01. Chandemic
02. Revolving Door
03. Brisance
04. Shuttered