When did bass house get this mean, and why is nobody stopping it? Split Signal is Habstrakt and Nostalgix feeding off each other in the worst way for your speakers and the best way for your night. Habstrakt has been a reliable supplier of that French, rubber-ball bass house bounce for years, all springy low-end and precision drops, and Nostalgix brings the thing it was missing: an actual presence on the mic, bars spat with real attitude instead of a borrowed pop vocal dropped in from a sample pack. The result is a track with a chip on its shoulder. The bassline does this detuned wobble that sounds like two sounds fighting over the same frequency, which I assume is where the title comes from, and every time it hits I make a face I would not want photographed. There is a breakdown that fakes you out, goes almost melodic for a second, then kicks the door back in. Nostalgix’s delivery is the glue; she treats the beat like a sparring partner, riding just behind it and then jumping on top. This is club music for people who go out to be slightly destroyed. It is dumb fun in the way the best bass house is dumb fun, and I mean that with total affection, the kind of track that makes a sober room briefly ungovernable.
January
Chrome Daydream
Chrome stars, jelly hearts and holographic colour. A nod to the glossy, optimistic graphics of the early web.