- Ukraine's Wicked Bass has released music from all over the world: past triumphs include Huerco S.'s No Jack and a Parris Mitchell reissue backed with Bok Bok remixes. Their latest comes from closer to home. It's tempting to read the title of Wulffius's debut, In The Pines' Crowns, as an ode to the ancient forests of his native Crimea. (There ain't a tree called the Crimean pine for nothing.) But you'd expect a nationalistic ode to a region with significant geopolitical troubles to be a bit less, well, wistful. Not that that's a bad thing: it's the light, playful melodies that give these mossy tracks their charm.
"Rand Ohm Case" is the best, its synth arps jumping and skittering in time to a svelte electro beat. They're minor key, and might have been ominous, but the richer horn-like pads lurking in the undergrowth are a bit out of tune, giving the whole thing a disarming scruffy feel. "Raindrops On The Window Sill" is weaker: its synths bead nicely around a compact house beat, but the bluesy solo falls on the wrong side of kitsch.
The EP hinges around the longer title track. It's another bouncy house number, whose drums are a particularly fine patchwork of jumpy toms, sidesticks and the odd snare. This thicket of activity ought to make the track difficult to get through, but it's redeemed by the melodies, which drift down from the treetops like warbling birdsong through the mist.
TracklistA1 Rand Ohm Case
B1 In The Pines' Crowns
B2 Raindrops On The Window Sill