Available on: Doldrums 12″

If you’ve followed Steve Braiden’s Rinse FM show, then ‘The Alps’ makes total sense. For the last couple of years, Braiden’s been using his DJ sets to explore the middle ground between classic electro, modern house and techno, and the various forms of club music that the UK constantly spawns and discards. No one’s really found that holy grail to date (though Instra:mental’s ‘Leave It All Behind’ was probably close, I guess), so he’s taken up producing to try and find it himself.

‘The Alps’ is probably closer to techno than any other genre, from the throbbing bass, to the slight sleaze of the vocal sample (“I like the way you moooove”, stretched out to weirdly sexual properties on the breakdown), to that computerised “let’s go” before the second drop. But more than anything else, it sounds like Braiden. With a lot of cowbell. I don’t think you can ask for more than that on a debut single.

Tom Lea