Picked from a whole host of fantastic releases due out this week, well documented favourite of mine and genre leading label Crucial Recordings submits its second edition of the ‘Crucial EP‘, where some of the Crucial family and new recruits join forces for a special release that showcases the labels trend setting sound and direction. Following a perfect first edition a year ago featuring a percy of mine ‘Johnny, Are You A Ghost?‘ by Mesck, I’ve been itching for the next volume and to find out who features on the EP of which I have not been disappointed as Crucial Recordings reaches across the UK and Europe.
It comes as a welcome surprise to see well respected Dutch producer TMSV make an appearance for the first time on the label, collaborating with a producer previously unknown to me, Van Dam. Revealing my hand early on, after a handful of listens, ‘Quanun Fodder‘ may be my favourite of the four on this EP thanks to a rich vibrant lead and a colossal low end with such rawness that it fits seamlessly into the Crucial catalogue.
Maybe it’s just me but after previous releases on Crucial and fellow high profile label Artikal Music, I still feel Causa is still criminally underrated. I can only imagine what is going unheard on his hard drive. His latest effort and the next track on the EP ‘Are We‘ is a thumping dancefloor focused track where Causa, as always, effortlessly combines the right amount of contemporary darkness with foundation sounds meant for the biggest of sound systems.
Of course it wouldn’t seem right to have such an EP without the label’s head honcho Sleeper. As one of the most creative in the game for a while, it’s no surprise that the intense ‘Ginger Root‘ possesses some of the more unusual melodies and structure out of the track list with a devastating mid range that fluctuates throughout.
Finally we land on one of 2018’s break outs Opus. Following a release on the label in the summer which goes down as an absolute favourite of mine from the last twelve months (‘Sharpie EP’), Opus sees out the year by continuing the innovation with ‘People’, focusing on unusual percussive patterns and a vivid sound palette that concludes the EP with pure energy.
Whether it’s an improvement on Volume 1 (CRUCIAL014), I’m not sure, I did enjoy it that much. However this is obviously still a must cop on the account of the talent involved and the powerful bass-driven creations that we’ve all come to know and love from Crucial Recordings.
CRUCIAL020 is out this Friday (14th December) available digitally from the Crucial Recordings Bandcamp and on vinyl from Unearthed Sounds.
Check out Crucial Recordings on Soundcloud and Twitter.
Check out TMSV on Soundcloud and Twitter.
Check out Causa on Soundcloud and Twitter.
Check out Sleeper on Soundcloud and Twitter.
Check out Opus on Soundcloud and Twitter.