Icebergs / Water Song (10in)

Producer and songwriter Typesun presents a double A-side of masterfully crafted and uncompromising explorations into worlds unknown, featuring vocals from Alison Garner of The Fauns and Alex Rita of Danish duo Okapii. Well known in the Bristol music scene not just for his iconic productions, but as a hard working and creative drummer, band leader and DJ, Typesun (real name Luke Harney) has been paying dues from way before the recent attention which has been focused on the city. Along with Andy Mac and Jay-L he runs the celebrated underground club night Falling Up where the trio have been following their own unique line through the best in soul, hiphop, house, techno and dub related music to great acclaim. Clearly a man who is more than rigorous when it comes to quality of output, this release provides a further glimpse into the expansive scope of his musical vision. The seeds of this collaboration with Alison were sown in the Summer of 2013 when Luke was drafted in lat the last minute to play drums on a tour for fellow Bristolians The Fauns. On the resulting track Icebergs, menacingly understated synths provide a striking backdrop to her painfully intimate vocal whilst the producer's frank and uncontrived lyrics conjure chilling scenes of unravelling love affairs set in some dystopian future. Water Song follows a no-less dissident line, but this time the drums are to the fore. Sharply interlocking latin percussion clusters round an insistent rolling bass line and hummed chorus whilst Alex's unique melodic styling and impeccable delivery soars above. Blasts of electric piano deliver brief breaks into technicolor and the overall both productions somehow manage to evoke both the immediacy of the moment and an ancient spirit of sound systems past. The remix sees the producer flipping into club mode with his 7 Arrows alter-ego taking the helm to deliver an unrelentingly fierce 126 bpm bass and drum driven work-out constructed from the same source material as the original, but taking off into the far edges of a territory recently carved out by other underground UK artists such as Pangea, Hodge and Boddika. In a world of near constant saturation with trite, over-productions these studies in stark minimalism and compositional restraint aren't so much a breath of fresh air as a blast of glacial wind. Each track boldly stands alone, but taken together they function as wildly divergent iterations of a profoundly convincing creative trajectory, further marking Typesun as an artist with an eye for the future and the ability to bring those visions to life.