Bullion – Young Heartache EP
Rating: 7.5 / Format: 12" / Label: One Handed Music
Forget speed dating, agony aunts and advice from friends, all you really need is Bullion’s new EP – a heartbreak remedy that follows in the footsteps of recent genre welding/splitting artists like Untold and Mount Kimbie. Let’s call it funk-infused-rom-soul-lovepop-step, to save arguments.
The thoughts and emotions present here are represented by the vocal samples, splattered across the individual tracks to reveal the concepts behind each one. ‘Are You The One?’ uses delay to full effect, and Bullion deserves kudos for making a male voice sound so sexy; the stuttering beat wrapping around the sample so effectively it could rival Nine Inch Nails as the ultimate in avant ‘cosy night in’ soundtracks. ‘Time For Us All To Love’ journeys and jumps through joyous bouncing funk. But it’s the title track that really flips things – a ticking clock complimented with warm flutes and a peppered snyth melody; juxtaposed vocals providing the melancholy: "and I think of the lovely girl I left behind…"
In Young Heartache, Bullion has crafted an EP which conjures images of both love and loss, blending old school vibes with a chopped up modern twist. Golden.
Chris McShee
Paul White – One Eye Open EP
Rating: 8 / Format: 12" / Label: One Handed Music
South London’s Paul White had already pricked the interest of off-kilter music lovers with his vinyl releases ‘For You & For Me’ and ‘The Dragon Fly’ on One Handed. This EP, however, is his real introduction to the world in preparation for the upcoming debut album The Strange Dreams Of Paul White.
The title track drops the listener immediately into the deep end, the sample wailing "I’m the guy they spit upon" before a Portishead-esque guitar strums in, only to be pole-axed by the attention-demanding percussion, building up into a beast of a head-nodder. ‘Alien Nature’ sounds like White swapped his South London attic for a North African bazaar, but doesn’t halt the neck movements; it simply makes it even more apparent how skilled and inventive White can be. ‘Time Wars’ is all Blade Runner-esque synths and 22nd century dystopia, the understated yet haunting vocals adding more dimensions to the vision, and ‘Phone Pest’ brings the tempo back up with bumping drums.
The EP finishes with White’s One Handed labelmate Bullion’s refixing ‘Hustle’ with aplomb, not falling into the safety net of psychedelic glitch he has a tendency to cling to. If they carry on where this EP leaves off, and if these EPs are a taster of what’s to come from One Handed Music in the future, then it’s time to get very excited indeed.
Abjekt