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White Noise: Sully – Carrier

Wednesday 5 October 2011

Sully – Carrier


2 Hearts
Encona
Trust


A dance LP is a curious thing to create, and you tend to have to make one of two decisions in order to come up with something good. Either make it clear that what you’re releasing is a collection of dance tunes, along the lines of Altered Natives and his Tenement Yard collections, or turn those dance tracks into something more artful, with careful sequencing and an emotional arc, like Zomby or Machinedrum’s releases from this year. Sully’s debut LP suffers for not picking sides; there are some brilliant tracks here but it is not really presented as a collection, and although there is a loose sense of progression from beginning to end, it doesn’t quite describe the vague narrative arc an album tends to paint.  

The sense of progression comes from the simple fact that the LP is essentially cut halfway down the middle. The first few tracks hark back to Sully’s most recent (excellent) single, The Loot, mining dark 2-step territories and verging on early dubstep sounds. Opener It’s Your Love sets the tone as a brooding end of the night piece, demonstrating Sully’s tight production skills and keen ear for including sparse atmospheric details. The thing that really saves this release is that a lot of the tracks are great stand-alone tunes, and second track 2 Hearts is one of the best. Throughout each cut he combines a sparse selection of sounds perfectly, and here a great drum track gives way to a paranoid, rising synth line and an echoing vocal scream that cuts right through you. He continues the variations on a 2-step theme with In Some Pattern, which came out a while ago as the B-side to his last single, in which colourful laser synths pierce the darkness to create a choppy, digital propulsion that works well but feels a little weak compared to the last couple of tracks. Encona is the last one in this mould, in which Sully evokes an old-school garage feel by going crazy on the effects.

After this the second half of the album begins proper, in which Sully brings in heavy footwork influences, smoothing them out and imbuing them with his dark, distinctive sound. Each of these pieces brings interesting and varied aspects to the mould, but inevitably some are more successful than others. Let You is a spare track with a fantastic vocal sample and booming bass, bringing together all the elements fluently and with admirably precise micro-edits throughout. Scram is another great track, with a creeping chord sequence and dark field of percussion. Trust is where Sully really hits the mark in his fusion of footwork and 2-step styles, with a rich and varied field of microscopic percussive and vocal edits that goes down so smooth, with a real tinge of melancholy to the sound. Other tracks don’t quite hit the mark so squarely; I Know is okay but brings nothing new to the table, while piano-based footwork ballad Bonafide is a really interesting idea that never quite emotes enough to pull on the heartstrings.

Sully is one of the UK’s most distinctive and skilful producers around at the moment, and so many of these tracks are great that it seems a shame so little attention was played to ensuring the LP can be listened through like an album, because most of the tracks seem to sound stronger and more varied when played in isolation from the others. If you’re looking for a full-length electronic album to lose yourself in, this might not be your first choice. But if you want to get your finger on the pulse of the UK dance scene or are looking for a few great tracks for a digital mix, you’ll find more than enough in Carrier.

7.5/10

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