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Sully - Escape

    • Label /
      Keysound Recordings
      LDN071
    • Released /
      September 2017
    • Style /
      Jungle, Garage, Grime
    • Comments /
      7 / View
    • Rating /
      3.7/5
    • Previous
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    Sully - Escape Sully - Escape
    Sully - Escape Sully lives in Norwich, but he's always seemed at home in London's concrete jungle. His music tirelessly explores its crooked streets, encountering the city's musical styles from fresh angles. His new album, however, hints at urban fatigue. There's the title, Escape, and the sleeve photo, which shows a pink balloon floating free of greying urban architecture. The opening track, "Thema I," is a grand beatless number full of swelling chords and sweeping melody. It sounds less like a UK dance floor mutation than a pitch to score Blade Runner 2049.

    On that track and "Thema II," Sully handles this new filmic formula with his usual deft touch. But it turns out these are little more than sojourns from the city, and before long he's pounding familiar streets. Sometimes a bit too familiar: "Bullseye" reprises the melancholic garage sound of his late '00s beginnings, and a vocal from Jamakabi can't keep it from sounding dated. Other tracks, however, show how it pays to repeat a formula. Sully's been riffing on jungle since at least 2014, and "Vanta" and "X Plus Y" suggest that he's still got tricks up his sleeve. Each contorts lithe breakbeats into ever wilder shapes. The effect is spooky on the former, where divas and ragga MCs moan like digital ghouls, and lighter on the latter, with its dip-diving snare rolls and bright melodies.

    Grime comes in the crosshairs, too. "Casablanca," with Jendor, shakes up a fairly standard 140 BPM rhythm—spiky clap patterns, stern synth-string melody—with a hailstorm of clever micro-detail. The instrumental "Assembly 1" is refreshing as well, with its cascade of sci-fi blips and skronks, clever beat fake-outs and smokebombs of reverb. Going by these tracks, "escape" is exactly what this album isn't. It's as immersed in UK dance culture, and beholden to Sully's usual habits and preoccupations, as anything he's released in the past decade. But the producer still finds ways to surprise you. "Assembly 2" calls back to grime, but it snakes along circa 90 BPM, its minor-key melody and "Pulse X"-style kick drum framed by a skeletal dembow rhythm. Sully's music might not be leaving the city any time soon, but a holiday in the Caribbean could do him a world of good.
    • Published /
      Tue / 17 Oct 2017
    • Words /
      Angus Finlayson
    • Share
    • Tracklist /
      01. Thema I
      02. Casablanca
      03. Assembly 1
      04. Bullseye
      05. Assembly 2
      06. Thema II
      07. Vanta
      08. X Plus Y
    0/
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  • More on Sully

    • Sully
      Add to favourites

      Sully aka Jack Stevens is an understated folk hero, a low key elusive bass producer with a fiercely passionate fanbase. Long before – four of five years before – the UK garage revival kicked in and “future” garage had even been dreamt up, Sully began f..
      View the full artist profile

    Upcoming dates

    • Fri18/May 2018

      London

      Watch The Ride #5 with Sully & Shannen SP

    • Thu05/Jul 2018

      All

      Transylvaliens Festival 2018 - 5th Year Anniversary Edition

    • Wed05/Sep 2018

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      Outlook Festival 2018

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    • Thu, 30 Nov 2017

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      The Bedouin-affiliated label is releasing vinyl for the first time.

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      His second LP for Dusk + Blackdown's label will land next month.

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