Available on: More Music 12″

It’s hard to think of a better way to announce a musical career than a collaboration with man-of-the-moment Ramadanman, but there’s inevitably a risk that you’ll forever remain in the shadow of such a highly regarded producer. Midland sidestepped this issue by releasing the captivating solo EP Play The Game back in July, and followed it up with a string of well received remixes for the likes of Caribou, 2 Bears and Stateless. With his latest release, he continues to cement his reputation as a notable producer in his own right.

Another example of the trend for genre cross-pollination that has born such exotic fruit in recent months, this time it’s the heady combination of rough breakbeats writhing beneath the kind of ethereal synth washes that hark back to the early days of jungle. A logical progression from ‘Play The Game’, it manages to evoke the brooding contradictions of early Moving Shadow releases with featherweight chimes defying the weighty breaks they are grounded upon, a tension echoed in the masculine grunts sparring with rave-diva moans. Like Lone’s ‘Once In A While’, the impression is of a producer exploring and updating a specific point in dance music’s past, in this case the moment when the breezy optimism of rave was first tainted by the early hours paranoia of hardcore and jungle.

In contrast ‘Dead Eyes’ is a relatively straightforward 4/4 percussive number complete with rumbling sub-bass and elegant synth stabs. In the same way that Play The Game juxtaposed the breakbeat-led title track with the regimented tech-house of ‘Heads Down’, it seems that Midland is keen to remind us that he’s not confined by any one particular rhythm. Meanwhile the Radio Slave remix of ‘Bring Joy’ is a 12 minute odyssey of pitched-down vocals and minimal aestheticism, and the ‘Youandewan Warehouse Dub’ rounds off the package nicely by conjuring up the spirit of Detroit techno striding over bulging, purposeful beats.

James Waldron