Sepalcure - Fleur EP

Fleur

Your Love

No Think

This EP slipped under my radar on release in January, but I think it deserves some more attention, and better late than never. Here Praveen Sharma (aka Braille, who has a promising-sounding EP out next month) and Travis Stewart (aka Machinedrum, whose recent release Room(s) is without a doubt one of the best LPs of the year so far) build on the ideas set out in their debut Love Pressure EP with fluency and skill, combining their choppy aesthetic with house and dubstep influences and a strong helping of what makes their music stand out so much; warmth.

The best accolade that can be given to this release is that there is no obvious standout; although the title track Fleur is brilliant, each song is a unique and separate composition, and my favourite tends to shuffle to whichever I'm currently listening to. These tracks combine a superb technical mastery, primarily the most fluid and organic sampling this side of Hotflush labelmates Mount Kimbie, with a gorgeous artistic aesthetic which makes every track generously lush and refreshingly warm. Furthermore this confident and coherent release is composed of individual tracks which never sit still, constantly remoulding themselves to encompass new sounds and influences, an impressive achievement.

Opener Fleur phases into existence before introducing perfectly pitched percussive clicks and a soulful vocal line, settling into a rhythmic and vibrant tune bursting with detail. Vocal samples here are manipulated masterfully, edging out the coolness of the interrupted phrases so favoured by contemporary choppers to blur the lines between voices and instrumentation, creating a blissful and natural sound. After this Your Love picks up the pace, with snares and kicks punctuating the air. Two samples court each other rather than dueling for prominence, the wordless melody proving especially remarkable. Around the third minute the track settles into a gorgeous groove, guaranteed to get heads bobbing, before dissolving back into the musical ether. A good outro rarely makes or breaks a track, but this is just another example of the superb attention to detail shown throughout this EP.

Third cut No Think is the longest track, taking a few cues from grime for a dark and pacey composition. Here the voices are less comforting, repeating and shifting pitch towards the close in a beautifully haunted manner, like Burial's ghosts glitching their way out of existence. Inside is a beautiful and short ambient stretch that lets off all the steam that has been building over the course of the EP magnificently, very comparable to Where Did We Go Wrong on the Room(s) LP.

Here two producers have stepped up their game more than could have been expected, crafting a brilliant set of 4 tracks which are distinct yet unified. If the trend continues, I'm not sure I'd be able to handle the quality of their next release. 

8.5/10