Following his ace trio of 2012 releases - including 12” drops on The Trilogy Tapes and Kyle Hall’s Wild Oats - Detroit’s Manuel Gonzales returns to the on-fire Don’t Be Afraid with a superlative 6-track workout. Once again he flits effortlessly between bugged-out beatdown abstraction and flexing, swishing club gear: the EP begins with raw keyboard and drumbox experiment ‘Hand Over Fifth’ before settling into the lithe, dark, pumped-up acid of ‘Proxy’, which will have fans of KMFH, Anthony Naples, Moon B and the L.I.E.S crew locked. ‘Funnel Vision’ is a rougher, more scuzzed-out study in techno, hinting at the basement nihilism of old Bunker Records and sitting nicely alongside contemporary updates on that sound from Ekman and Vereker. The Dutch vibe continues with ‘Jijijijij$ijijiji’, a red-eyed Hague electro cruiser in the vein of MurderCapital recs, RA-X or DJ Overdose. The more expansive ‘Tritan’ is dreamy, Virgo-syle chi-house and concise but epic closer ‘Bean Chirp’ bombs it back to the Motor City, borne along by distorted kicks and bluesy, can’t-forget-you synths. A classy affair.
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Following his ace trio of 2012 releases - including 12” drops on The Trilogy Tapes and Kyle Hall’s Wild Oats - Detroit’s Manuel Gonzales returns to the on-fire Don’t Be Afraid with a superlative 6-track workout. Once again he flits effortlessly between bugged-out beatdown abstraction and flexing, swishing club gear: the EP begins with raw keyboard and drumbox experiment ‘Hand Over Fifth’ before settling into the lithe, dark, pumped-up acid of ‘Proxy’, which will have fans of KMFH, Anthony Naples, Moon B and the L.I.E.S crew locked. ‘Funnel Vision’ is a rougher, more scuzzed-out study in techno, hinting at the basement nihilism of old Bunker Records and sitting nicely alongside contemporary updates on that sound from Ekman and Vereker. The Dutch vibe continues with ‘Jijijijij$ijijiji’, a red-eyed Hague electro cruiser in the vein of MurderCapital recs, RA-X or DJ Overdose. The more expansive ‘Tritan’ is dreamy, Virgo-syle chi-house and concise but epic closer ‘Bean Chirp’ bombs it back to the Motor City, borne along by distorted kicks and bluesy, can’t-forget-you synths. A classy affair.
Following his ace trio of 2012 releases - including 12” drops on The Trilogy Tapes and Kyle Hall’s Wild Oats - Detroit’s Manuel Gonzales returns to the on-fire Don’t Be Afraid with a superlative 6-track workout. Once again he flits effortlessly between bugged-out beatdown abstraction and flexing, swishing club gear: the EP begins with raw keyboard and drumbox experiment ‘Hand Over Fifth’ before settling into the lithe, dark, pumped-up acid of ‘Proxy’, which will have fans of KMFH, Anthony Naples, Moon B and the L.I.E.S crew locked. ‘Funnel Vision’ is a rougher, more scuzzed-out study in techno, hinting at the basement nihilism of old Bunker Records and sitting nicely alongside contemporary updates on that sound from Ekman and Vereker. The Dutch vibe continues with ‘Jijijijij$ijijiji’, a red-eyed Hague electro cruiser in the vein of MurderCapital recs, RA-X or DJ Overdose. The more expansive ‘Tritan’ is dreamy, Virgo-syle chi-house and concise but epic closer ‘Bean Chirp’ bombs it back to the Motor City, borne along by distorted kicks and bluesy, can’t-forget-you synths. A classy affair.