- "Take your favourite things from tracks you really love, listen to them and then make music with them in mind." That was the advice Marcel Dettmann gave to Patrick Gräser in the months before Gräser made "Escape Myself," the shadowy breakbeat weapon that launched his career. It feels like Formas, a Berlin-based trio with ties to Club Der Visionaere and the Brouqade label, have done a similar thing on their debut EP. Listen to the highlight, "Meta." Its bleeps and synth zaps are pure modern minimal, but its chords—and is that a vocoder?—are vintage dub techno. There's even a hint of tropicana in "Autotrofo," a collaboration with the Uruguayan producer Luis Malon, who coproduced one of the neo minimal scene's biggest bombs. The result here is refreshingly melodic.
The B-side is more abstract. "Rumbo," the heaviest track on the disc, lunges from breakdown to breakdown, boosting the energy each time the kick drum returns. "Vortex" is the closest the EP gets to deep house, pushing a subaquatic sound that takes in early techno and classic electro. Most DJs—including Alexandra, who spun "Meta" at Sunwaves—will reach for the more original A-side, but every track on S7M8 could light up a dance floor.
TracklistA1 Meta
A2 Autotrofo (Adobado Por Luis Malon)
B1 Geometric Vortex
B2 Rumbo