Bass aficionado’s White Peach Records simply know what’s hot, especially when it comes to dubstep and grime. The label has consistently signed the cream of the crop over the years including the likes of De-Tu, Glume & Phossa and TMSV, however from time to time, White Peach invests in emerging artists, giving them an opportunity to showcase their simmering potential to the masses. The latest debutant to be given a shot is Bristol’s Lofty. He’s sporadically shared some damn good tunes over the last year including a release on Mercurial Audio, so when I saw his name on a White Peach release, I knew this must be some bloody good stuff to make such a step up and so it is.
In keeping with White Peach‘s uniformed catalogue of four track EPs, Lofty‘s ‘Solstice‘ EP is just that – four back-to-back heaters beginning with the easy-going title track, ‘Solstice‘. It’s one of the more vibey, stripped back cuts of the four, centred on a catchy fuzzy bassline, punctuated by mellow vocal cuts and delicate xylophone notes. But as nice as ‘Solstice‘ is, it’s a mere appetiser in terms of stature as Lofty offloads the heavy artillery with ‘Desert Storm‘. It’s a collision of grizzly bass textures and bottomless subs, charging on a warpath through threatening synth stabs that descend upon a bloody battlefield of bass. The following ‘Nightfall’ puts itself in contention as Lofty‘s meanest tune, echoing the grit of the previous track with a bassline that snarls like a pack of wolves looking for fresh meat, which in this case is the beefy percussion – vigorous and snappy, the most active and effective on the record. Like many of Lofty‘s tracks, there’s a layer of atmospherics that are so subtle yet so tangible which really takes the aggressive nature of the tune to another level. Continuing to show his versatility, Lofty takes us back to a place of comfort and poise as we come full circle upon the concluding ‘Impetus‘. It’s one of his more wavier tunes, made for midnight drives or an antidote to the bass-driven violence that came before.
In an era of seemingly constant debuts and a conveyor belt of creative talent, some can fall under the radar and unfortunately remain criminally underrated. Well there’s no such issue here as White Peach demonstrates the underlying importance of record labels in 2021, by giving the raw and developing talent of Lofty a chance to display his versatile sound which he does so emphatically and I can’t wait to hear more!
‘Solstice‘ EP is out 17/09/2021 and available on vinyl and to digitally from the White Peach Records Bandcamp.
Check out Lofty on Soundcloud and Instagram.
Check out White Peach Records on Soundcloud and Instagram.