Walking back from the last train with this in my ears, the empty street suddenly had a soundtrack it did not deserve. Walk Me Home pairs Buunshin, who makes some of the most intricate and genuinely pretty dubstep going, with Taiki Nulight, whose roots are in the swing and bounce of UK garage, and the track lives in the overlap between those two worlds. It is a deep tune, low and unhurried, built to fill a space rather than flatten it. Buunshin’s melodic instinct is all over it, little glassy details threaded through the gaps the drums leave open, and Taiki’s garage sensibility keeps those drums shuffling and alive, swung and loose. The title promises something tender and the track mostly keeps the promise, a bass tune with a soft centre that would sound at home at 2am in a half-empty room as easily as on a festival rig. There is a patience here that a lot of modern bass music has forgotten is even an option, a trust that the quiet parts carry as much weight as the loud ones. It never once tries to overwhelm you, and that is exactly why it lands. This is the walk-home end of dubstep, and I resented none of the fifteen minutes I spent running it back.
January
Chrome Daydream
Chrome stars, jelly hearts and holographic colour. A nod to the glossy, optimistic graphics of the early web.