Recommended: Maxmillion Dunbar – Woo EP

Andrew Field-Pickering is a busy man. Not only is he responsible (alongside various collaborators) for the peerless Future Times Records, the universal grooves of Beautiful Swimmers, and a not to miss NTS Radio show, he’s about to put out a new album. Throughout all these excursions Field-Pickering, donning his Maxmillion Dunbar moniker for this latest release, is anything but one-note. Ahead of “House of Woo”, due out in February, RVNG Intl. has dropped a 12″ to wet our appetite. If you packed a few hours of Future Times’ radio show into a blender you might end up with this record. Each installment glides with ease through raw house, balearic rhythms, international funk, experimental sounds, unquantized boogie, and all around deep cuts. It’s rare that we get such access to an artist’s influences. In this case it proves that Field-Pickering is a pro at sublimating them into his work while still churning out tracks that are unmistakably his.

Maxmillion Dunbar – Woo (RVNG Intl.)

“Woo” is so jubilant it’s easy to forget that it clocks only 116 beats per minute. While previous tracks like “Piano & Dream World” and “Polo” insinuate their place on the dancefloor, “Woo” insists it. Seriously, this is one hell of a sunrise tune. The B-sides are a return to another aspect of the Maxmillion Dunbar catalog. “The Drift” is a raw, meandering, hardware jam. Sharp drums bounce around with a bassline that wouldn’t feel out of place in an 8-bit dungeon sidescroller. Sparse, rough and direct. If “Woo” is for peak-time, and “The Drift” for the darkest hours of the night, then the final track “Shampoo” is to nurse the next morning’s hangover. Everything about it floats. You can even detect hints of Jon Hassell (a megamix of who’s tunes Field-Pickering compiled for his recent Truancy Volume) in its buoyant sound. Now that anyone on Soundcloud can rehash whatever track they lik,e it’s a relief to know there’s someone out there with a deep record collection and the production chops to push music into the future while still respecting it’s past.

Maxmillion Dunbar – Woo is out now on RVNG Intl.

Stephanie Neptune

Spends a lot of time in loud and/or dark rooms. Surfing Twitter as @spacejamzzzz.