Aus music has always been a name of quality and consistency. With releases from the likes of Leon Vynehall, George Fitzgerald and Midland it has always been a forerunner in the highest quality house and techno. This remains true with Saints and sonnets label boss Huxley. Having released a slew of records through AUS as well as his debut album “Blurred”, back in October of last year. Huxley returns with a crossgenre 12″ that clearly shows why he has remained a long term staple for the label. At a time in electronic music where there is more quantity than ever Huxley continues to stand out from the crowd and make his voice heard.
His next Ep, ‘2.0’ is a 4 track collection of powerful hard hitting tracks. With carefully placed vocal samples and tape driven synths all deftly arranged to do some serious damage on the dance floor. Kicking things off is “Still Love”, fast paced and starting with a minimal feel. It quickly adds more elements, particularly a female vocal hook that sets things off completely. The catchy melody and ever pressing bass line is classic Huxley. Ever talented at seamlessly adding different elements into tracks to take them to another level.
Following on is “Weapon”, Immediately very different to what has come before with a strong German techno feeling at the beginning. Then enters the vocal sample. Perfectly incomprehensible. Choppy and rugged this track screams late nights in Berlin deep in the basement of some club with its bone rattling bass. The pace is taken up a notch by this track on what was an already very fast paced opener for the record. I can see this getting a lot of air time from a lot of DJ’s come its release. Really really liking this.
On the flip side is “Voks” which begins with a howling female voice which then envelopes into the melody. Huxley has definitely taken things a lot deeper than we are used to seeing from him. Heavier base lines and booming drums make for some exciting listening. These tracks are a long way off from his efforts in years gone past like “Box clever”. Voks is the by far the darkest Huxley has gone with his music and it gets a massive thumbs up from me. This holds its ground with any techno track out there in my book.
Lastly is “Sink Hole” which veers closer to the realm of Tech-house than anything else on the record but once again Huxley shows he is well able to mix and match what he does at a very high level. Hi hat heavy, with a more playful feel to it. Massive amounts of different elements getting added in and out creating a barrage of different sounds, but all coming together as a climactic finish to a very strong record. My favorite track on this record has got to be Voks, an absolutely cracking B side track that will come into its own come its release on the 4th of September. This one is not to be missed and Highly recommended!
https://soundcloud.com/huxley_uk/sets/2015-releases
Tracklist:
A1. Still Love
A2. Weapon
B1. Voks
B2 Sink Hole