12 February 2010

Slugabed - Ultra Heat Treated EP - A MUST 10/10 !!!!


Slugabed is a visciously clever musician, mixing in a big digital cauldron all those post-post-dilla chopped-up twisted beats with absolutely beautiful and unique synths, occasional cheap tune extravaganza. bleeping 8-bit loops and drilling, heavy bass, giving me creeps of extasy when listening. His music is simply tight as hell and his multi-layer compositions sound very monolithic despite the variety of components used. He stormed the scene with a set of absolutely top-notch remixes like Slugabed Sez or NastyNasty's - The Reef or BD 1982's Space Boots to mention my favorite ones.



But it is the debut EP on the mighty Planet Mu - Ultra Heat Treated EP that catapulted Slugabed to another level reserved for the toughest players, as correctly observed by Boomkat, and as correctly anticipated on this very blog at the end of the last year by your humble, humble narrator :)   I expected a lot of Slugabed, yet with this release he managed to surpass all of them.



In the opening Ultra Heat Treated, Slugabed takes the listener for a slow journey through heavily synth-driven sonic landscapes, riding on a broken hip-hop beat and encountaring a fair share of bleeps and beeps along the way. Skyfire is a mind-boggling, overwhelming outburst of totally far-out 8-bit synths - a real, unique banger - I taste blood on a dancefloor with this one! Enter neon wonky with Pressure - and again the Slugabed's work on buttons is formidable! Quantum Leap is my personal highlight, the cream of the cream, showing an unrestrainted music imagination and fabulous selection of cheap tune melodies all mixed to create a very powerful and beautiful composition. Goulash is a clash of dark, dubstep aesthetics with twisted synths as if exported from a score to some future sci-fi thriller. The dynamics of this track are extremely unnverving, with the beat cut up and sequenced in the most unexpected way. This tune is definitely not of this Earth or dimension. I know it sounds pretty bombastic and lame, but just listen for yourself and let's compare our impressions :)  The fantastic release is crowned with a more laidback (for Slugabed) sound of Titans nicely rolling through the speakers. All in all Ultra Heat Treated EP is the best release this year so far and the maximum score 10/10 in my personal ranking!

It's a MUST for any fan of modern IDM/EDM/wonky/dubstep/beatz.

Grab it here:
Juno.co.uk
Junodownload
Boomkat