2 hours ago
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From London via Brighton
Recommended if you like Jawnino, Fakemink, Jai Paul
Up next Engine Heartbreak EP released 20 May
Not many can say that Björk has played their track while DJing at the Venice Biennale, but, as of last weekend, Rian Brazil is one of them. The Brighton-born producer, also praised by pop star Lola Young, is a master of earworms, which he weaves from the sample-heavy sounds of the UK underground (see his longtime collaborator, Fakemink producer Clearo) and the saccharine highs and bassy lows of his vocals. On first listen, you might mistake the huge range of his melodies for Auto-Tune, but this, impressively, is Brazil’s raw voice, modulated vocally to achieve deeply vulnerable performances that set his sound apart from his rap-focused peers.
Across his forthcoming Engine Heartbreak EP – including drum’n’bass love-song Bullet Caught in a Spiders Web, the gospel-inflected Things 2 Make U Smile and the glitchy A Butterfly Was Born – Brazil (his real name) creates a sonic world that is as addictively online as it is yearning for IRL contact. Amid the radio-style chaos of his production, which recalls Jai Paul’s infamous 2013 Leak 04-13 (Bait Ones) or the new-gen sounds of Brazil’s peers The Sound Chalk Makes and the Twins, there are sonic relics and lyrical references gathered from a youth in the backend of England – In Brazil’s case, Hollingdean, Brighton.
Here, we find the soul-inflected sounds of church, the happy hardcore played by a former raver mum, ripped MP3s streamed on the school bus through cheap headphones. The result is a sound that propels you through the present, while reminding you where you came from. In Brazil’s words: “a futuristic version of the grime-obsessed kid who grew up smoking ciggies on Barrow Hill”. Letty Cole
This week’s best new tracks
Jorja Smith – What’s Done Is Done
Getting her song-of-the-summer contender in, Smith acts as coroner for a dead relationship over a heavily bassy beat. There are the plucked strings and skippy hi-hats of UKG, but it’s no nostalgia trip. BBT
Helado Tropical – Tocando
A once-certain relationship is slipping through a lover’s fingers on the first taste of Helado Negro and Fabi Reyna’s duo album, though there’s no urgency in their sweet guitar, lo-fi fuzz and unruffled voices. LS
Show Me the Body – No God
The hardcore punk trio reject religion in favour of earthy immediacy on this brutally funky, massively danceable neck-snapper: one to lovingly hurl your mates around to. BBT
The Avalanches – Together (ft Nikki Nair, Jessy Lanza and Prentiss)
Infatuation and disappointment – “you could never picture me at home crying over my telephone” – inhabit this electro-pop candyland, part of its beat made up of the click of a camera shutter. LS
Overmono – Lockup
Putting a chopped-up, pitched-up vocal sample against bass-driven tech-house could be formulaic, but the returning duo masterfully invert the form with chaotic head-rush detail – festival season can’t come soon enough. BBT
Alys(alys)alys – Effervescence
So bassy you can practically feel the walls wobble, the Berlin-based Brazilian producer’s latest feels more perilous than its bubbly name: a ricochet of splintered vocals and increasingly overwhelming drums. LS
Ivy Knight – Beacon
Beautifully produced by Deer Park (better known for his underground rap collabs), this track sets crisp acoustic guitar against amorphous bass as NYC singer-songwriter Knight summons a spectral mood. BBT
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