Mumdance & Logos – Genesis EP

Label: KeysoundScore: 8/10

Both Mumdance and Logos have had quite a 2013, with both producers tearing up the country’s dancefloor’s and radio waves with their abstract interpretations of grime and underground, hardcore continuum based bass music. In March, opening number to their debut EP, ‘In Reverse’ appeared on Keysound’s now legendary ‘This is How We Roll’ label sampler- a record that featured, and gave most of us our first look at some of UK Bass music’s brightest new talents, with people such as Wen, Beneath, Epoch, Rabit and E.M.M.A appearing alongside more established acts such as Visionist and label curators Dusk + Blackdown themselves –  immediately marking out the duo as a production partnership to be watched out for, so different their tune on the compilation was compared to basically anything out at that moment in time.

Eight months down the line comes their ‘debut’ dual production, the fantastic ‘Genesis EP’ out, of course, on Keysound Recordings –  a label that has gone from strength to strength in 2013, and has now firmly cemented itself as a ‘buy on sight’ institution due to the spellbindingly strong roster of artists making and releasing music no-one else would dare too.

Mumdance has been around for a while now – with releases on Mad Decent, No Hats No Hoods and Southern Fried Records – fusing his signature hardware synth sounds and riddims with abstract urban tropes to devastating effect. These signifiers were particularly exemplified on this years ‘Twists and Turns’ free mixtape, a release that garnered critical acclaim across the board for it inventive use of sounds and design, reimagining the techno studio for the grime scene and beyond.

Logos, a prominent member in rising instrumental grime collective ‘Boxed’, whose debut album ‘Cold Mission’ is set to be released later in the month, is a purveyor of, believe it or not, atmospheric, weightless grime (yes that is possible!). His 2012 ‘Kowloon EP’ referenced classic grime and eski tropes from the early years of the genre, even managing to find inspiration from Wiley’s beatless ‘Devil Mixes’- which in the words of Bows most famous resident himself “sounded evil to me innit…”  This persuasive combination of mood and sound immediately found favour with the scene’s tastemakers, who praised the producer’s experimental, genre defying talents as exploratory and unique.

With the duo’s pedigree not in doubt, it is no stretch of the imagination to hear that when the collaboration was announced people were excited, very, very excited. The prospect of Mumdance’s body music beats and pounding analogue sensibilities combined with Logos’ moody atmospherics and evil imagination was utterly titillating and expectation was high. The question that needed to be asked however was “could they pull it off?”

The answer to that question is undoubtedly yes as the pair has come correct with an EP that can’t easily be shoved into any genre pigeonhole as it runs the gamut of electronic music styles, mashing all manner of influences together into an urban centric melting pot that is seasoned with smatterings of ambient bliss and dancefloor destroying DJ weapons. Sure there are urban memes a plenty but there are also many, many different influences on show over the course of the EP’s four tracks.

‘In Reverse PIV’- a reworking of the track that birthed their collaboration –  kicks things off with swathes of chest constricting, subdued reese bass and a glittery pad work before launching headlong into a torrent of reversed drums and hardware kicks that drive the track forward in a  deliciously abstract manner. Underpinning the rhythmic madness is the shiny, Day-Glo pad that grounds the track in reality, giving it an eerie edge that when it dissolves into nothing, and the reese kicks back in, during the middle breakdown, takes the tune down the rabbit hole into dread infused, fantasy-steampunk territory, creating an alien, industrial take on modern UK urban centric music. A belting way to start the EP!

‘Turrican 2’ launches into action in a flurry of 909 beats (replete with cowbells a plenty), joining the dots between Mumdance’s signature machine-funk sound and Logos’s instrumental grime sensibilities. Built around one of the current mainstay sounds of this year’s grime sound palette, the revered ‘Pulse-X’ style bass stab, the tune pounds along in conjunction with hefty percussive treatments and a weird, minimal 8-bar-esq arrangement, with crisp techno leaning hi-hats driving the track forward in fine style.

‘Wut it Do’ takes influence from the currently in-vogue jungle template, fusing well-executed breakbeat science with repeating ‘B-More club’ vocal snatches and classic, hip hop horn stabs, allowing the duo to create a modern UK bass track that at once hints  at the potential future/next phase of the hardcore continuum, but at the same time explores the real roots of the UKs dance music history –  hip hop and funk (from which, arguably, when combined with techno, created hardcore and then subsequently jungle and drum and bass).

Finishing off the EP is Mumdance’s collaboration with Mao, the utterly compelling ‘Truth’ – the standout track for me on this EP – a number that combines grime’s stop start percussive inventiveness with meditative, soaring pad work that takes the listener on a journey deep into another dimension. The track’s elements appear to be weightless, suspended in a fog of reverberated space and time, anchored by the galactic sized strings that swim into focus, enveloping and shrouding the fidgety, hyperactive, adolescent drum work in a warm, loving embrace. Seriously, to me, it sounds like a galaxy being birthed, with elements popping into existence from nothing, flowing out into the cosmos to be meshed together into something organic and cogent. It’s truly gripping and masterful.

With the hype surrounding this EP, it could have been very easy to play it safe and stick to something a bit more conventional, but then this is Mumdance and Logos we are talking about, and conventional doesn’t even register in their vocabulary. It’s as an assured a debut as I have heard this year and I am truly looking forward to what they come up with next time as, like the Force, they are so much more than the sum of their parts when put in the same studio together. Magnificent, experimental fare for lovers of music in general.