Available on: Tighten Up 12″

Kavsrave – The Break Up ( Sorrow)

Having dropped his pristine Quotes EP on Numbers last year, Jamie ‘Kavsrave’ Kavanagh moves onto the home turf of his new Tighten Up label to release The Break Up.

While Quotes offered up a set of slick, accessible club essentials, The Break Up errs slightly towards the conceptual side, offering up two versions of the EP’s title song; one followed by ‘(Anger)’ and one by ‘(Sorrow)’. Anger, unsurprisingly, is especially ready for the dancefloor, a satisfying blend of Kavsrave’s now trademark r’n’b vocal cuts and crowd-pleasing synth weight, but it’s Sorrow where the EP really finds its feet, manipulating the same pieces into an emotive experience – all cooing vocals and regretful atmosphere. Add to the mix the winding synthesizer lines of ‘Illict Dreaming’ and it’s plain to see that while it would’ve been easy to follow Quotes with something underwhelming, The Break Up smoothly sidesteps this pitfall.

Kavanagh has constructed an EP of beautiful subtlety and fragility here, building on his instantly recognisable style with steadily-maturing developments. Having used the same base to create two different approaches to the same track is a paricularly ingenuitive trick, allowing an exploration of the power of arrangement; a skill Kavanagh clearly has honed to perfection.

Mike Coleman