Maribou State At Juno Download

Review: Out on The Fat Club's Fat! label, this upcoming trio make an impressive debut with the five tracks that comprise the Habitat EP. Very much on a haunted vibe, tunes like "Take Another Look" take just the right effects to the vocals to give them a disorientating and spooked vibe, while the beats tread somewhere between garage and broken beat. The delicate and fragile "Soul Structure" will please fans of Warp's golden age, while "Silent" comes over somewhere between Four Tet and Daedelus gone seriously funky. Best of the bunch though is EP closer "Casantra" which storms though on a torrent of new-wave stabs and echoey percussion.

Review: With two excellent releases on Fat! already behind them, Maribou State deliver another fine EP in the shape of Olivia. The title track takes delicate samples of organic percussion, a masterfully handled vocal and works them into an expansive soundscape reminiscent of Mount Kimbie, albeit one whose ethereal frame is held together by a solid house beat at its core, and the kind of intricate melodic command that would put Four Tet to shame. "Bricks" meanwhile utilises a booming bass in conjunction with its colour-saturated unfiltered synths and sweet chopped-up vocal, wrapped up in a fine package that recalls Sepalcure's broken-beat take on dubstep. Highly recommended.

Review: Hot on the heels of Maribou State's excellent Olivia EP come this collection of remixes of the title track. The hotly tipped Pedestrian opens proceedings with a deep reworking of the original which stays fairly true to its 2-step roots, keeping the textures organic and retaining the rhythmic playfulness of the original. Lee Mortimer meanwhile turns in a chunky, big room revision, which goes from thundering kicks into a schizophrenic laser-bass in the blink of an eye. Finally, Mao delivers a slow-building affair which is packed with subtle autumnal tones but all the punch of the original. Some wildly differing revisions here, and the package is all the better for it.