What do you get when you cross a pet cat named Fudge and Larry Heard? That, my friends, would be the work of Edinburgh based producer Gavin Sutherland who is also known by his alias Fudge Fingas. Having played the keyboard for the likes of Carl Craig and Plastic Avengers in his early years, the man went on to produce a series of quality releases from 2002, as well as a full length album for labels such as Prime Numbers and Firecracker Recordings. These labels are home to talented artists such as House Of Traps, Discreet Unit and Linkwood, who Sutherland values as being some of the most important people in helping him learn such knowledge over the years. Sutherland’s newest release titled “Amaranthine Labyrinth” makes its way on to the recently inaugurated Amsterdam based label Purple Maze. Still in it’s early days with only three but wonderful releases from artists Yør and The Please, Sutherland’s outing is a slight far cry from the gritty and deep techno from the aforementioned artists, yet doesn’t at all feel forcefully out of place.
The EP opens with “Eyes On The Prize”, which starts with a series of bongo, claps and a subtle bassline that create the foundation for some funk infused chords and the echoed words of ‘shine on you’. At 126BPM it’s the fastest track on the whole EP, yet cleverly designed to be able to immaculately work people’s feet on the dance floor and then relax them in a park when the sun is out. Things continue in a similar, but more upbeat vein with “NTNLNC”, ushering in a bouncy repeated sample and a punchy set of four by four kicks for a hypnotic bomb. As the catchy melody is filtered in and back out, the track manages to reach pure exuberance. Things get taken down a series of notches with the two remaining tracks on the release. Whilst the latter were produced with what we can imagine a dance floor in mind, Sutherland has taken a more subdued approach t0 finish off the EP. “Kinksi” and “Eyes On The Prize” both merge a mixture of blissful chords and harmonic melodies with the use of vocals to add an extra element to the tracks, and as whole the entire release.
Fudge Fingas – Amaranthine Labyrinth was released on June 11th on Purple Maze and can be purchased here.
