If you were anywhere near a drum and bass room in the last couple of years, you have heard the original Release Me whether you clocked the name or not: it was one of those Kanine tracks that just lived in every set for a while. The VIP closes out Reflections, his debut album on UKF that landed this month, and ending a record on a VIP of a track that was already a floor-filler is a confident move. For the uninitiated, a VIP is the producer remixing himself, usually to make the thing hit harder for the big rooms, and that is precisely what happens here. INDI’s vocal is still the heart of it, that yearning topline that gave the original its lift, but the drop has been rebuilt meaner and cleaner, the bass reshaped for a festival rig rather than a laptop. Kanine works in that bright, melodic, high-impact lane of dnb that purists like to sneer at, and I have never cared, because the man writes hooks that actually stay with you. The VIP does not reinvent the track. It sharpens every edge the thing already had. It is a victory lap that happens to slap. As album closers go, you could do a lot worse than the sound of a producer flexing on his own best idea. The yearning and the violence land in the same breath, and that is the whole trick.
Kanine is no stranger to this blog. Last time: Kanine & HEIGHTS - Reflections