Sach O throws tantrums not fits.
At the top of the year, I wrote a post on an impressionable young man named Matthew Hiscock whose off-kilter beats, unlike most other unsolicited music I receive, somehow managed to get into my iTunes playlist. To his credit, they were very good beats. Since then, Matthew has wisely adopted the (slightly) tougher moniker Hissy Fit and has linked up with Montreal’s Swing & Skip crew, dropping a single on Boomkat, hitting up Montreal radio and generally making his presence known at every other show I attend. Now he’s partnered up with Phuturelabs for the release of his free Crosstrainers EP and I felt the time was right to give the man’s music another look as he’s covered a lot of ground in the space of a year.
A-Side Crosstrainers is a sugar rush, instantly kicking things off with a euphoric vocal sample and a killer bass line. In a major change from his previous material, the rhythm veers closer to contemporary dancefloor strategies than his previous unquantized bump with the tune’s two alternate mixes figuring nicely into the post-Dubstep underground. Though he never falls into full on House territory, the garage mix flirts with the kind of smart, syncopated 2-Step production currently in favor with Joy Orbison, Ben UFO and Ramadanman while the original mix proves there’s still life in half-step.
B-Side Outdoor Life has gotten play on London’s Kiss FM and on Martin Clark’s monthly Rinse showcase and with good reason, as it doesn’t quite sound like anything else I’ve ever heard. Though the beat screams “funky”, the overall vibe is closer to a blissed out afternoon in the park than an over-inebriated nightclub… it may be the first ever Bass music tune requiring the adjective “pastoral”. Blending synth washes with acid bass and a cosmic reverberating guitar, it’s psychedelia reinvented as club music re-reinvented as psychedelia, except without Animal Collective warbling over it. The result lands somewhere in between chillwave and bassweight: electronic music that isn’t afraid of a soft-focus but that doesn’t hide between kitschy low-fidelity either.
All tunes are available for free on Phuturelabs along with a guitar-free Outdoor life for those allergic to solos. Recommended with long walks in the countryside and quality illicit chemicals.
Download:
MP3: Hissy Fit – Crosstrainers (via Phuturelab)
MP3: Hissy Fit – Crosstrainers Garage Rework (via Phuturelab)
MP3: Hissy Fit – Outdoor Life (via Phuturelab)
