- Earlier this year, Simo Cell, AKA Simon Aussell, described Glide, his year-old EP for Livity Sound, as a creative breakthrough. "I feel free to experiment [with] a lot of different things right now," he told Inverted Audio, referring mostly to his music's expanding tempo range. He seemed especially liberated on Glide's "Obi," a 100-BPM creep with glass-shard melodies, and "Echo Doppler," a light-speed roller from this year's Pogdance—both are distinct from the bassy polyrhythmic techno of his mostly UK-based peers.
On "Feel Di Kouala Vybz," from Pour Le Club!, Aussell's scope widens again. It's fast (160 BPM), prickly (thanks to its fast-twitch percussion), and hard to pin down—the doomy sci-fi synths gesture to late '90s drum & bass, but the tuned bass drums and lack of breaks bring a fresh perspective. The "Intello Mix" of "Stop The Killing" is the other highlight. Of the four tracks here, it sounds most like a high-spec Livity Sound belter, with surgical sound design, counter-intuitive syncopations and icy arps. Other tracks less successfully echo this sound. The bass drones and subtle drum delays make "How Do U Turn This On" worthwhile, but the gated wail on the original mix of "Stop The Killing" isn't compelling enough to lift an overly familiar drum pattern.
TracklistA1 Stop The Killing
A2 Stop The Killing (Intello Mix)
B1 How Do U Turn This On
B2 Feel Di Kouala Vybz