- Given he named himself after the San Fernando Valley where he grew up, you could say SFV Acid is invested in his surroundings. Many of his releases are concerned with suburban life (one was even recorded in a Starbucks). 818 Extracts—excerpts from a longer tape released a few years ago—also references the region of Los Angeles: 818 is the telephone area code that covers most of the SFV.
If you haven't been to the San Fernando Valley, imagine everything you already associate with LA—but on steroids. Sprawling, flat and hot, the horizon never seems to end, and everywhere you look there's another low-rise block and another strip mall. It's an alienating yet oddly dreamy place, two qualities that come through in SFV Acid's work, including "Lil Gurn," a groovy house track with odd chords that whoosh and widen like shadows passing overhead. For a producer whose work is often defined by its strangeness, "Flies (Candoga Digital Mix)" is remarkably straightforward, another precocious house track with squiggly synths and a roving acid bassline.
818 Extracts' shortest track lingers the longest. "Wheat" is a breezy mélange of LA tropes, from the low-slung Dâm-Funk rhythm to the whining G-funk lead, finished off with—what else?—a splash of 303. Packing a lot into two minutes without sounding dense, it feels like cruising down Ventura Boulevard, seeing almost nothing of note but still enjoying the ride.
TracklistA1 Wheat
B1 Lil Gurn
B2 Flies (Candoga Digital Mix)