London's Powell works with opposites, in a way that's delightfully disconcerting. His tracks, on the surface, seem relatively uniform - but listen closer, or at punishing volume, and they teem with detail: wiry guitars, sinister yelps, synth figures that fizz like bubbles through sparkling water. Across two EPs in 2012 for his own Diagonal label and one for Death Of Rave in 2013, he has established himself as one of the UK's most unique electronic musicians. Powell's tracks flirt with the dynamics and structures of club music while joyfully subverting them, throwing acoustic sound sources or disembodied voices into the mix to play havoc with the groove. Indeed, the three tracks on his new Fizz EP for Liberations Technologies are some of the most mischevious club-rooted music you're likely to hear all year. They nod obliquely to Powell's history with jungle and early drum & bass - compared to the techno-esque momentum of his earlier releases, here he's almost subliminally ratcheted up the tempo, turning these tracks into blistering forward barrages of percussion and dusty bass. On 'Fizz', sub-bass throbs like a motorbike engine, paired with his distinctive guitar scribbles. 'Wharton Tiers On Drums' sets panicked vocal cut-ups to a rapid motorik chug. And the sketchlike rhythmic pummelling of 'Beats'
plays almost like a DJ tool, a reminder that even this strangest and most angular of music can lay waste to dancefloors.
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