- How to contextualise the next release on hip-hop man Rekordah's burgeoning Astro:Dynamics? Past label releases won't help, given they range from skweee to boogie to downtempo, so instead you'll need to imagine some kind of lo-fi trip-pop amalgamation as a guide. Samoyed's technique is to fill large open spaces with his frail, vulnerable tones and brittle percussive ticks. While that may sound all too watery and gaunt, it somehow isn't thanks to the details round the edges. Tape hiss, wallowing pads and echoing finger clicks all put one in mind of Nicolas Jaar, but Jaar recording by the beach, rather than from the inside of some dusty old broom cupboard.
"Spit" has smeared, pitchbent chords backing the Scot's delicate refrains for three minutes of blissful sonic daydreaming. "Malamute," on the other hand, sounds like it was recorded in the room next door, so thin and endless are the echoing chambers in which his voice hangs. The only accompaniments are one-finger strikes on a piano, rough plucks on the strings of a double bass (or something) and streams of tape hiss. "Maybe Yes" is a rather more troubled, in-yr-face construct of ephemeral melodies and jarring percussion—something Lukid draws out into a rather less frantic but just as unsettled passage of dishevelled late night melancholia for his remix: Atmospheres like these linger long in the memory.
Tracklist A1 Spit
A2 Maybe Yes
B1 Malamute
B2 Maybe Yes (Lukid Remix)