- New York's prince of acid goes ghetto house.
- The idea that electronic music is futuristic is cliché, but clichés are often true. This also means sometimes it sounds dated, as ideas of the future change. But not acid. If Kraftwerk is Star Trek, then acid is Starship Troopers, a chaotic, corroded, decadent vision of the future, whose alien qualities only seem to become more suitable to our times. Dance floors don't lie, and more than 35 years after its inception, acid still holds the same power over them, too. New York artist Anthony McLean, AKA WTCHCRFT, excels at channeling the power of this elemental sound. The title track of his new EP, Drugs Here, is a punishing march where a virulent 303 writhes against barrages of monolithic claps. It's Sisyphean in its resigned, ever-restarting trudge, a track designed to squeeze the last bit of stamina out of elated dancers who treat their weekends like marathons.
This back-to-basics attitude might have something to do with McLean only relatively recently crashing the party: by his own admission, the New Yorker's dive into the deep end of (Black) dance music history was relatively fresh. He epitomizes the pandemic's silver lining, one of those artists able to make the best out of a dire situation by using the downtime to master his craft. His scope widens beyond acid here, as he takes an unexpected turn into Dance Mania territory. "No Time To Lose" lives up to its name, rushing along at a cool 155 BPM, springy and calling to mind LSDXOXO's recent output, while "Run It Bak Attak" and its impossibly funky lead scratching across the arrangement are pure Chicago sass. In line with his less-is-more ethos, I almost wish McLean had abstained from using those organs stabs in that first track's back half, and kept it lean and skeletal instead.
For all the record's belligerence, something about Drugs Here feels light-hearted. No matter how punishing the kick, there's always enough funk to make you bounce around rather than stomp. And from the edition of 666 records to the cartoonish grunts and growls he slathers all over those tracks, the mood remains mischievous rather than evil. McLean knows how to craft belters out of a handful of elements, and to make them hit hard without stifling the dancefloor. The flattening kick after the drop in "Uhmm" could be a drudgery in lesser hands. In his, it's exhilarating, just the push an exhausted dancer needs to stay and borrow some tomorrow-time. In other words, for someone who recently pointed out how hard it is "to make a really simple song with few elements SLAP," WTCHCRFT has it down to a science. Whichever genre he chooses to have a go at next (hard house, anybody?), it should make a lot of dance floor walls sticky, in Brooklyn and beyond.
Tracklist01. Drugs Here
02. No Time To Lose
03. Uhmm
04. Run It Bak Attak