Recommended: RL Grime – Grapes

A massive delivery by New York youngster Henry Steinway, known as RL Grime: his “Grapes” EP is the first official release of  the Wedidit blog that also functions as a label nowadays. Homies Groundislava and Shlohmo are part of the record as well as Salva and LOL Boys, both of which released on FoF Music. The latter is officially home to Groundislava and Shlohmo, so we guess it’s fair to assume “Grapes” is pretty much of a family affair.

RL Grime caused some attention when he published his debut EP early in 2011. His “Clipz” release, a nice set of tracks, did not prepare us for the “Houston-flavored crunk” madness 20-years old Steinway unleashes on “Grapes”. The four originals borrow from everything that is hot in bass music these days, switching from quite minimal to all-over-the place in a sudden. Grime brings bright cross-modulated synthesizers and washed-out textures for the party (“Amphibian“), Ghettotech and Miami Bass (“Art Money“, “Treadstone“), and Dirty South vibings on opener “Grapes Alla Vodka“. The trademark to all tracks is the surprising amount of melody that makes it not just a collection of tracks, but a proper EP release and RL Grime a musician rather than a DJ of his own tracks.

Much love for the remixes of the release, too. Salva delivers an aggressive Footwork-take on “Grapes Alla Vodka” that will take-apart any available dance floor. In the hands of LOL Boys, “Treadstone” becomes a trippy, shamanic deep house jam we can easily imagine falling in trance to. Groundislava focuses on the melodic part of “Amphibian” by altering the pitch and injecting his painfully soulful videogame synthesizers: the kid is a heartbreaker! Shlohmo and 2KWTVR also remix “Amiphibian” in a joint effort, but do not essentially change its character. Stream the release below and head over here to buy the whole release for a mere five dollars.

Sven

Music fanboy. One half of Error Broadcast. Scientist, father, husband. Lives in Berlin.

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