Kowton joins a host of producers who are reiterating – and the point does need hammering home – that despite the contagion of brostep and family, there’s still place for imagination on the dancefloor. There was a time when you could layer a crudely chopped R’n’B sample onto a bland bed of bass and expect the club to promptly start salivating. Those days are long gone, but for those who suffer withdrawal symptoms if they go too long without hearing the harmonic crooning of their favourite songstress, producers like Kowton still know how to handle a vocal sample without descending into formulaic dreariness. “Looking At You” lets a jittery Destiny’s Child sample clamber around an insistently eccentric bass rhythm, while a muted idiophonic melody which sounds suspiciously like a steel drum casts a Trinidadian radiance over proceedings. Unaffected without being too simple (if that’s possible), this is one you won’t mind growing on you. It’s been knocking around for a minute but there’s not long to wait to get your hands on this in real life, and you can snap up a Dusk track as well as another remix from Kowton. Happy New Year or what?

Kowton – ‘Looking At You’ by BOILER ROOM

Out on Dusk + Blackdown’s Keysound Recordings January 9th, available for pre-order now on Boomkat.