April Roundup

This month we felt the first breath of summer so there are a lot breezy moodsetters and funked-out jams from the likes of Omega Supreme and Mood Hut, including the long-awaited returns of Andrés, Sound Stream and the Pender Street Steppers. Adesse Versions on Numbers takes us to peak-time territory, and we finish on the rough style of Ekman, 1080p's Surfing and Shed (as PCK), via some ultra-melodic house from Makam and Christian Loffler. So there's really something to suit all comers, so get listening.

Tracklist:

Ishmael - Time & Time Again

Midnight Runners - Cold Intimacy

Andrés - Believin'

Haydn - Booty Meat

Sound Stream - Bass Affairs

Local Artist - Feelings

Pender Street Steppers - The Glass City

Palms Trax - Sumo Acid Crew

The Cyclist - Hot House

Adesse Versions - Pride

Gonno - Obscurant (Inna Loft Mix by Call Super)

Makam - A Night at Trouw

Christian Loffler - York

Marquis Hawkes - Raw Materials

Massiande - The Future (Is Now)

DJ QU - Loveboxx

Mix Mup - Skip Intro

Surfing - bbc

Ekman - GMMDI (Breaker 1 2 Remix)

PCK - Amen Garage

Tapes Meets The Drums Of Wareika Hill Sounds - Datura Mystic

Best Tracks of 2013: 85-26

While making this list, I couldn’t help but dwell on how inevitably arbitrary the order of year-end lists are. There are a number of problems facing a music site who wishes to post year-end lists, and the roundup of best songs poses more problems than any other. While albums and labels can be compared by their overall coherence and power, short tracks are often incomparable – you might know your favourite twenty songs of the year, but how do you choose between them? Then there are external pressures: not wanting to list the same tunes as other sites, while not wanting to rock the boat so much that your critical opinion is devalued. More to the point – the songs themselves, even in a niche such as dance music, are so different that it seems an utterly pointless task to put them in any sort of order. Exactly how does one decide if x disco track is better than y techno track, when there are so few (if any) points of comparison: the tracks are not trying to do the same thing, so how can they be compared?

With what criteria do we even judge the quality of a track? There are certain songs I love but aren’t in any way mould-breaking, while others I’m not that fond of but greatly respect as innovative pieces of music. In the world of quasi-objective music criticism a problem becomes clear when there's conflict between the music you like and the music you respect. Ultimately, White Noise has never been a review site which has claimed a strong degree of objectivity, and so when it came down to those final choices, I just listened to both tracks and picked which one I liked more – no rationalisation, no heed paid to the prevailing schools of taste or ‘cool’, just the tracks that made me feel warm inside and set my mind/ pulse racing.

The fact is, the world of journalism, particularly online, relies entirely on readers. And for whatever reason (as the existence of buzzfeed will testify), people prefer reading ranked lists to general selections. Is your eye more drawn to a countdown of the year’s best, 10-1, or to an unordered list of 10 highlights? Most would say the former, and so, while picking the best between Pev, Tessela and Levon Vincent may torture me like some sort of clubland Sophie’s choice, I’m gonna give it my best shot.

The point to be made here, before we embark upon this list, is that all of these tracks are really, really great. The top 25 or so are even mindblowing. They probably don’t represent even a fraction of the great music that came out this year, but they’re certainly all more than worthy of your time. So with the waffle out of the way, let’s get to the tunes.

85: Cuthead – Deep Shadows

84: Orson Wells – Leaving

83: Marquis Hawkes - Get Yo Ass Off My Grass [EP Review]

82: Moomin – Au Bord De La Mer

81: Francis Inferno Orchestra – Take No Time [EP Review]

80: Zomby – Memories [LP Review]

79: Dense & Pika – Colt

78: Laszlo Dancehall – Gave Up [EP Review]

77: DJ Fett Burger & DJ Speckgurtel – Speckbass

76: Huerco S. – Apheleia’s Theme

75: Perseus Traxx – Gorgon

74: Les Level – Fever Baby

73: Joy Orbison – BRTHDTT! [LP Review]

72: Headless Ghost – Basik Fire [EP Review]

71: Pev & Kowton – Raw Code

70: Benjamin Damage – 010x [LP Review]

69: R-Zone – Romijn Ravine [EP Review]

68: Tiger & Woods – Golden Bear

67: Head High – Burning (Keep Calm Mix) [EP Review]

66: Kyle Hall – Crushed [LP Review]

65: Deadboy – Nova [EP Review]

64: Motor City Drum Ensemble – Send A Prayer Pt. 2 [EP Review]

63: Machinedrum – Eyesdontlie [LP Review]

62: Objekt – Agnes Demise [EP Review]

61: Four Tet – For These Times [LP Review]

60: Tuff Sherm – Burglar Loops

59: Jon Hopkins – Breathe This Air [LP Review]

58: Randomer – Bring

57: Lucretio – Want

56: HNNY – Boy

55: Tessela – Horizon [EP Review]

54: MGUN – Mask

53: Innershades – Nina At The Boiler Room [EP Review]

52: Voiski – From White To Red [EP Review]

51: Midland – Drumtrak [EP Review]

50: Trevino – Twelve

 

Since his conversion to the church of 4/4, Trevino’s take-no-prisoners techno has proved a steady source of club-tooled grooves. On Twelve from his latest EP for 3024, he let loose one of his darkest yet, with momentum to spare and a dangerous piano breakdown.

49: D’Marc Cantu – Size & Shape

This weird and wonderful highlight from Cantu’s Alternate Frequency EP was an oddball joy, with an unexpectedly catchy vocal joining jittery drum machines for a unique ride. The track really takes off in the second half as a more melancholic chord sequence joins the fray, sure to spice up any set.

48: Terekke – Amaze

 

No one does baked quite like L.I.E.S.’ wonderful Terekke. The atmosphere is deep and soupy, the light rustle of percussion and distant synth burbles accompanying a dubbed, ghostly vocal. One for the after-hours.

47: Stingray313 – NKKtwo_2

Detroit’s superb electro-vet DJ Stingray came out on top with this top scifi trip, where slow synth washes counterpoint razor-quick percussion and skittering melodies.

46: Martyn – Oceania [EP Review]

The two house tracks on Martyn’s Newspeak EP were wonderful, but in a year where good ‘bass music’ was in cruelly short supply, Oceania was one of the few miracles. The glittering melodies evoke space-age cities and sunlit superhighways, while the growling bassline and ricocheting percussion will keep feet skipping across the ‘floor.

45: Fuewa – Blhok [EP Review]

Fuewa’s lovely debut EP was an masterful exercise in atmosphere, and nowhere was this clearer than on opener Blhok, where a blissful synth is built over ramshackle percussion and subtle windchimes.

44: Funkinevil – Ignorant (Igno) [EP Review]

Kyle Hall and Funkineven made one of the year’s most striking club tracks in the form of slow-jam Igno, a low-slung roller whose appeal lay in its skeletal structure and gallons of funk.

43: Borrowed Identity – Leave Your Life

The first release on DVS1’s new Mistress imprint was a great success, and the pick of the bunch was this eyes-down roller of the highest calibre. Leave Your Life is a consuming track, taking you deep inside to commune with its heavweight groove.

42: DjRUM – Honey [LP Review]

Until the last minute, Thankyou was going to be the track that represented DjRum’s wonderful Seven Lies album on this list. But it was Honey’s sense of menace which won us over, its vocals beautifully processed, its beats lurching and destructive. DjRum’s attention to structure is also evident in spades, as a dreamy outro makes this more song than track.

41: Stephen Encinas – Disco Illusion

Though it was recorded in 1979, we couldn’t keep this recent reissue of our list. Sultry vocals and cosmic melodies take this disco trip to the next level, the lyrics lifting you into the sky while the unadulterated funk keeps feet rooted to the dancefloor.

40: Raw M.T. – Walkman Is Dead [EP Review]

This track is analog techno at its finest: deep and inviting, made up of few perfectly-tuned elements, cresting at a series of highlights: the final emergence of that threatening acid line, or the penetrating interruption of those metallic snaps. Top notch 5am material.

39: Murat Tepeli – Workinstrugglin

Tepeli’s homage to man’s struggle is an absolute epic, evolving over eleven minutes with precision and feeling, subtle melodies and a simple bassline making for a stark, involving experience. You can be sure this one will still sound great ten years from now.

38: The Field – No. No… [LP Review]

Listen to a clip here

The track whose creation solved Axel Willner’s creative block is a deeply emotive affair, as that plaintive one-word vocal stretches off into an immense, swampy darkness, its humanity stolen as the track reaches its haunting climax.

37: Dark Sky – In Brackets [EP Review]

This softened offering from the reliable Dark Sky was unfairly slept on this year, but it has all the makings of a winner: pretty synth notes play across a stripped, organic beat pattern, while the payoff when the beat clicks back into place after the long, emotional breakdown was one of our favourite musical moments this year.

36: SSOL – Untitled A1

This disco number from Soundstream has all the ingredients of an average disco/house edit: cooing vocals, funky riffs and snapping drums. But there’s something else: a special quality to this edit, whether it’s the energy of those live-sound drums or the smart instrumental editing, which raises SSOL’s cut high above your average filter-disco.

35: L-Vis 1990 – Ballad 4D [EP Review]

Night Slugs label-head L-Vis can be a frustratingly inconsistent producer, but his Ballads EP turned out to be NS’ unexpected highlight of 2013. Ballad 4D was a particular triumph: as submarine bass swipes resonate beneath a stark field of clicks and kicks, it’s an alarming, vital affair.

34: White Material – Put On [EP Review]

Galcher Lustwerk’s Tape 22 EP certainly received a lot of attention this year, but it was his contribution to WM’s collaborative EP that really had us amazed. This wonderfully simple slice of house creates an enveloping atmosphere with just a few elements, Lustwerk’s recognisable vocals adding a sultry atmosphere to the track’s languid bump.

33: Anthony Naples – Faceless

Really, any of the tracks from Naples’ ace Ill Still EP could have placed highly on this list. But for us it was Faceless’ curious nostalgia that won us over: sweet yet melancholy, it constructs a strong groove that only strengthens over whirring synths and metronome woodblocks.

32: Dopplereffekt – Gene Silencing [EP Review]

Gerald Donald’s triumphant return to the scene was crystallised on Gene Silencing, a seething slice of electro dripping with menace and scifi trappings, its tunnelling bass hits and glistening arpeggios whisking us away to distant worlds.

31: Red 7 – I Lost My Shoes On Acid

One of the year’s most exciting white labels was an odd combination indeed: classic vocals set over a taut acid workout: even a painfully old-fashioned hip hop verse couldn’t damage its blissful appeal.

30: Mix Mup – After The Job [EP Review]

Mix Mup couldn’t have chosen a better vocal to kick off his brilliant EP on Hinge Finger. Tina Turner’s promise of a ‘nice and rough’ sound is exactly what we’re given, a lumbering bassline and click-clack percussion creating an unsettling yet seductive world. The late entry of a searing synth line is Mix Mup’s victory lap, perfecting the track’s threatening groove.  

29: ∆ ∆ - You [EP Review]

There’s something indescribable about You’s impact. The vocal is loving yet plaintive, the melody hesitant yet catchy, the stripped drum workout groovy yet not explicitly for the dancefloor. It’s hard to pinpoint just what makes this track stand out, but maybe that curious appeal is its real strength. Either way, it’s been heavily played at WNHQ for almost a year now, and that counts for a whole lot.

28: Jon Hopkins – Open Eye Signal [LP Review]

The lead single from Hopkins’ phenomenal Immunity LP was widescreen techno at its most vital. Every sonic element feels alive: breathing, growing, contorting, emphasising Hopkins’ unique ability to make music that sounds huge without sacrificing subtlety or detail.

27: First Choice– Love Thang (Genius Of Time Rework) 

It’s always dangerous to remix a classic, but Aniara staple Genius Of Time struck gold with this fantastic remix of First Choice. Chilled disco roller gives way to stomping house seduction, before a showstopping bassline brings the funk in inimitable style. If you ever wanted a whole party in a song this is it: and it’s exactly the sort of party we’d want to get invited to.

26: Cliff Lothar – Dro Friday [EP Review]

The Hague’s longstanding electro/italo outpost Viewlexx showed they can still pick out new talent like the best of them on this superb EP from the shadowy Cliff Lothar (who’s next up on Skudge White). Dro Friday was our pick of the lot: a creeping house roller whose melodic and atmospheric intricacy would amaze even if it weren’t for the fantastic vocals that lend this club-track a song-like structure and appeal.

 Join us for the countdown of 25-1 tomorrow!

Best of 2013:

* Best Labels of 2013

* Best EPs of 2013
* Best Tracks: 85-26
* Best Tracks: 25-1

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Will Hardcore Ever Die? Techno's Resurrection of the Breakbeat

Hardcore will never die – we’ve all heard the old adage. Except over the last ten years, hardcore did kind of die. The breakbeat, once supreme champion of dancefloor percussion, just wasn’t cool anymore. Meanwhile all the genres that worshipped at the altar of these chopped funk breaks: drum’n’bass, jungle and hardcore, began to stagnate, left to the die-hards with their perma-gurns as the school of the new millennium turned to grime, garage and dubstep, or indeed back to the worthy institutions of house and techno. The use of breakbeats within hip hop has a long history and continues to bear fruit, but it’s only recently that the percussive style has seen a re-emergence in the dance sphere.

For years the breakbeat scenes haven’t seen much in the way of progress, the last notable exception being DnB’s Autonomic phase spearheaded by the likes of Instra:Mental and dBridge. Yet listen closely and the winds are changing: there has been a sharp increase in the use of breakbeats in modern dance music in 2013, whether they appear as retro ornaments or something altogether newer: conventional drum loops twisted, distorted and recontextualised into fresh shapes. While others have charted the re-emergence of new forms of drum and bass, this article will explore the practitioners who are recontextualising breakbeats at slower tempos, in techno and beyond. 

Paul Woolford - Mindwash

One of the men at the heart of this revival (and the inspiration for this article) is none other than man of the moment Paul Woolford, who is currently attracting all the right attention with the rugged productions of his Special Request moniker. With a name that references (perhaps even mourns) the pirate radio stations that birthed his sound, Woolford’s Special Request tracks are ferocious club monsters, where familiar breaks are squashed into tough technoid forms, glorifying hollow, compressed kicks and elastic breakbeat loops. Yet Woolford’s compositions are not just throwback. On each of his celebrated white label releases (along with an ace recent EP for Houndstooth), he adds a distinct flavour to the gritty soundcraft, keeping it personal and modern. For example, while the superb Mindwash may give way to a tear-streaked breakdown of breathy vocals and eternal synths in pure 90s style, it has at its core the restless pursuit of a maniacally sinuous melodic line which would only be heard this decade.

Pev – Aztec Chant

As most of the music that heavily used breakbeats hovered around the 160bpm mark, some of the more interesting re-appropriations of the beats have come from artists who have slowed them down. Livity Sound head-honcho Pev (formerly Peverelist) is one of the UK scene’s leading lights at the moment, honing an utterly unique style of techno which incorporates various elements of the UK’s hardcore and dubstep lineage. Hear on this year’s Aztec Chant how the breakbeat is just one of the track’s percussive components, nestled amidst panning melodics and frayed hi-hats, looping like a broken record until it finally takes centre stage for the track’s final two minutes. Yet it is not just scene stalwarts who are reclaiming the breakbeat: A Sagittariun, one of the country’s more intriguing new techno producers, constructs a moody scifi soundfield on his stylish Eye Against Eye, only for a slo-mo breakbeat to steal the scene, a perfect fit for the slick Detroit atmospherics.

DJ Haus – Cold As Ice

It’s not just individual producers who are looking to reclaim the hardcore sound: certain labels seem particularly intent on pushing the 90s revival. Chief among them is DJ Haus’ inimitable Unknown To The Unknown, who topped our list of 2012’s best labels. Besides a hilarious Youtube channel and bizzare cover-art, DJ Haus has used UTTU to resurrect some of dance music’s less popular genres, from electro to bassline garage. Proving that these old styles have life in them yet, some of UTTU’s breakbeat experiments have been pure gold: one need only look as far as Haus’ own Cold As Ice for an achingly cool lesson in hardcore, replete with a tacky synth breakdown which I wouldn’t have any other way. Elsewhere on the label, Lords Of Midnite’s excellent Drown In Ur Love EP took the breakbeat on a scifi odyssey for its epic analog title jam.

Andy Stott – Up The Box

We’ve seen a clear renewal of interest in the noble breakbeat, with a variety of artists co-opting those breakneck rhythms to their own ends. Yet outside of the dancefloor exists another group of hardcore operators, dealing with decay and disintegration, resulting in what is perhaps the most fascinating material that the breakbeat has to offer today. These artists can be loosely grouped around the experimental Modern Love and PAN imprints, the former’s Andy Stott being a perfect example. The formidable Up The Box, from his ace 2012 album Luxury Problems, is a semi-experimental piece which loops a locked breakbeat, jamming like machinery in a slowly building gale of static noise. After three minutes it drops away, and after a few atmospheric shifts returns with a phenomenal compressed kick in toe, an exhilarating fusion of jungle and techno that combines the tough distortion of each without even a moment’s relief. It may also be worth noting the possibility of Stott’s involvement in Modern Love’s ultra-limited Unknown / Hate project, a purist exercise in pitch-black junglism which yielded uncompromisingly destructive club tracks.

Demdike Stare - Collision

Further into the world of experimentation one comes across Demdike Stare’s recent Testpressing series, also out on Modern Love. Drawing on a profound knowledge of jungle, hardcore and noise, Collision saw the pair at their rawest yet, building four minutes of seething, heatsick noise around a bed of jammed, dysfunctional breakbeats. While Demdike turned jungle to noise, PAN’s Lee Gamble used his superb Diversions 1994-1996 to draw out the ambience of these tracks, dissolving breakbeats in the faded ambience of musical recall, turning the raves of the 90s into the incoherent, mesmerising sequences which now exist only in our memories. In a fitting parallel, a similar trick was pulled off by Anthony Naples on his remix of Special Request’s Mindwash, casting the legend of hardcore beneath the gauze of memory, eroded by time, subject to dissolution and fragmentation. These experimental re-appropriations of breakbeats treat the drum pattern as an artefact of its own time, and through recontextualising the familiar drum loop they pose questions about evolving musical trends and the unreliable nature of memory itself.

Tessela – Hackney Parrot

Before this article disintegrates, weighed down by the fragility of its pseudo-philosophical musings, it’s worth drawing attention to how current, how big these modern breakbeat iterations can also sound. On the following playlist you’ll hear a selection of some of the sounds discussed above, but also some genuinely innovative use of the classic drumloop – DJ Rashad’s minor masterpiece, the emotive Let It Go, which dissects breakbeats with the finesse of a surgeon, or Clouds’ ode to the rave thump on the monumental Future 1. Yet at the same time we have Dance’s curious Still, a ghostly slo-jam that leaves the breakbeat wholly intact, or Shed’s nuanced second outing as EQD, which ranks among the producers best work to date. Then there’s Tessela’s phenomenal Hackney Parrot, doubtless one of 2013’s most memorable anthems, guaranteed to get the crowd moving even if the dancers don’t know their breakbeat from their steak frites.

The lasting impression of this survey is the extraordinary versatility of this simple set of drum loops, which twenty years on are still being used and abused in the most fascinating, exhilarating fashions. Not only are artists continuing to insert breakbeats into showstopping underground hits, but the passage of time has permitted an artistic re-appraisal, with producers subjecting the drums to the decay of memory and time in a way which opens entirely new avenues of musical possibility. Will hardcore ever die? It’s up to the artists, but on the strength of the scene’s ability to appropriate and re-integrate artefacts of our musical past in ever-more innovative ways, it looks set to survive for a long while yet.

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Playlist

Tracklist:

DJ Rashad – Let It Go

A Sagittariun – Eye Against Eye

EQD – EQD 002B (04)

Clouds – Future 1
Point G - Braka

Special Request – Broken Dreams
Ramadanman - Don't Change For Me

Pangaea – Razz

Unknown / Hate – Human Resources
Deadboy - Nova

Special Request – Mindwash (Anthony Naples Eternal Mix)
Lowout - LAS

Dance – Still
Simoncino - Happy (DJ Sotofett Slow Jungle Trippin')

If you want more, check out Boomkat's ace series of playlists on 14tracks.

August / September Roundup 2013

September's Hardcore feature has led to hitherto unknown levels of busyness here at White Noise HQ, with the result that August's Roundup was left by the wayside. To solve this sorry state of affairs, we're repeating July's double extravaganza, cramming two months of superb music into a single youtube playlist. As usual, it starts off warm and housey, moves to weirder, technoid territories and finishes with some prime spacey material, including top picks from Forest Swords' AOTY contender Engravings and Andy Stott's unbelievable Tricky remix. Enjoy!

For daily doses of new tunes, make sure to follow White Noise on Facebook and Twitter!

Tracklist:

HNNY - Mys [EP Review]

Damiano von Erckert - Hollywood feat. Georgia Anne Muldrow [LP Review]

Jessy Lanza - Keep Moving [LP Review]

Space Dimension Controller - First Glance [EP Review]

Funkinevil - Ignorant (Igno) [EP Review]

D'Marc Cantu - Size & Shape 

Funkineven - The Joker

Leon Vynehall - Step Or Stone (Breath Or Bone) [EP Review]

Frank B - Chain Of Fools (Lumigraph's 909 Assassination Remix)

Shed - Fluid 67 [EP Review]

Call Super - Informer [EP Review]

Innershades - Nina At The Boiler Room [EP review]

Trevino - Twelve

CVNT - Feminine Destruction

De Sluwe Vos - OG Anthem

Jeremih - F U All The Time (Kowton Refix)

Etch - Hybrid [EP Review]

Visionist - Poison [EP Review]

Pev & Kowton - Vapours [EP Review]

Machinedrum - Gunshotta [LP Review]

Tricky - Valentine (Andy Stott Remix)

Forest Swords - An Hour [LP Review]

And the perennial 'one that wasn't on Youtube':

A Sagittariun - Clusters

Shed - The Dirt / Fluid67

Label: 50Weapons

Across many names, Berlin’s René Pawlowitz has more than earned his position as the German techno monarch. His tracks play out a resolved conflict: in equal parts subtle and pounding, oneiric and mechanised. They move irrepressibly forward yet are locked in place, building pent-up energy like jammed machinery. After an excellent recent outing under his Head High moniker, Shed now returns to Modeselektor’s 50Weapons, the label which released his latest full-length.

While Pawlowitz will often stick to one of his established styles on a release, here we’re given two different sides of Shed. The A-side, The Dirt, is a classic, as misty, detuning synths and frantic hi-hats build up to a momentous kick. It’s a rather contained affair, hypnotic rather than frenetic, yet Shed still predictably pulls it off with style. The B-side is a rather more striking affair. We’ve seen him play with breakbeats before, but Fluid67 remains a compelling composition, as rugged breaks thrash out over dubbed, aquatic synthnotes. Just as he did on the phenomenal Rave (Dirt Mix), the blend of dream-like melodics and pounding, earthy percussion makes for a winning combination, concluding Shed’s latest donation to the techno world with a bang rather than a wimper.

7.5/10

Head High – Burning

Label: Power House

The music of René Pawlowitz, aka Shed, Head High, WK7, Wax, EQD (or whatever else you want to call him) has for several years been synonymous with Berlin’s world-class techno scene. While some other countries are now vying for a stake in the techno game, particularly Canada through the style of the Turbo imprint and the UK’s increasing focus on the industrial sound, few single producers have attained Shed’s levels of  renown and consistency. Indeed, Pawlowitz puts out essential records year after year, particularly the singles under his housier, ravier Head High guise, which include last year’s ubiquitous Rave (Dirt Mix) and 2010’s It’s A Love Thing.

Burning (Keep Calm Mix)

Now with typically minimal fanfare another Head High release has appeared on the shelves, just as muscular and floor-focused if not quite as strikingly anthemic as last year’s 12”.  Burning (Keep Calm Mix) kicks off the package with flair, a particularly brawny locked groove giving way to clean, powerful piano chords, a beacon of euphoria within the murky percussive field. As is common with Shed’s work, the simple set of layers is so immaculately crafted that little progression or change is necessary across the track’s course; it’s rich body-music that won’t fail to move a crowd. On the flipside Burning is given a (Keep It… Mix) in which the keys are more subdued, restrained by frequent filter sweeps and a beat pattern which appears to fold in on itself rather than progressing forwards, creating a lurching momentum reminiscent of Head High’s remix of Joy O’s Ellipsis.

Sandwiched between the two piano cuts is Keep On Talking (Dirt Mix), a more familiar but no less efficient slice of crunchy techno. A stammered kick and terse vocal clips play out a call-and-reply with aquatic synthwork, before the track takes off with a sequence of jangling hi-hats. Each one of these three tracks could easily find a place in the crates of all manner of DJs, a testament to the adaptability of Pawlovitz’s muscular sound and to the confidence with which he reconfigures and revitalises his style with each consecutive release.

8/10