Fade To Mind At Juno Download

Review: Combining the experimental synth tendencies of peers like Ital, Oneohtrix Point never and Laurel Halo with the kind of R&B influenced bass music of producers like Kingdom, Fatima Al Qadiri stood out from the crowd of footwork bandwagon jumpers with her Genre-Specific Experience EP for New York's UNO last year. She returns here on Kingdom's Fade To Mind imprint with the Desert Strike EP. Despite the name it would seem to be video game war being referenced; the whole thing bristles with the 16-bit shimmer of early grime. "Ghost Raid" combines stray gunshots with distant square waves and arid melody, while "Oil Well" combines eastern tones with booming toms and angelic vocals, and "Hydra" adds steel drums to dramatic symphonic sweeps. Somewhere between dance music and computer simulation, Desert Strike is one of Fade To Mind's most intriguing releases to date.

Review: Finnish grime and techno hybrid dance music producer Gremino steps up with a superb release on Fade To Mind, the US sister label of Brit based Night Slugs, owned by Kingdom. Jumping straight in at the deep end with the unrelenting, pounding tech funk of "Lush", it's all booming bass and frenetic yet precise rhythms, before we are taken on to the eponymous track of the EP, "Let's Jack" which boasts darting bleepy melodies, choral sci-fi sweeps and pummeling beats. The quirky and curious story continues in "Faerietales", a milieu of disorientating synth squiggles and weird wails. Highly recommended.

Review: When it was announced that Kingdom was to be running a transatlantic counterpart to Night Slugs, Fade To Mind, there was always the worry that it may simply try to replicate the same formula as it's older brother. However, four releases in and it's developed a very singular aesthetic, as demonstrated by this debut EP from Massacooramaan. Pitched somewhere in the middle of Nguzunguzu's psychedelic, tribal R&B and frantic Chicago footwork, Dead Long Time is a wild ride through chopped samples and syncopated beats. "Dead Long Time" is characterised by its sweet marimba melody and autofire snares, while "Wijd" places pounding kickdrums over a gothic choral backdrop. "Bludgeon Riddim" meanwhile takes a hip-hop approach, albeit a threadbare one with gurgling samples, while "Jumble Yelp" is about as heads down as it gets, with an introspective sidechain riff underneath a juke rhythm. Footwork titan DJ Rashad even makes an appearance in "Aww Shit!", fusing his angular rhythmic approach alongside Massacooramaan's weird middle eastern melody. Warped, but fantastic stuff.