Narcofunk – Seeing You Miserable Makes Me Feel Alive EP
A new garage bass EP out next month on Club Soda Records from Italy’s Narcofunk.
Seeing You Miserable Makes Me Feel Alive is not only a great title but is a tune that starts from a sort of two-step allied with a fat sleazy bass, to stop any suggestion of superficiality. Haute Volta (15.10.87) is a lush, slower tune, again washed along on waves of bass. A more house influenced and indeed lovely track. The Sea Knows Best drifts into IDM territory with the skippiness and cracked, glitched sounds. The EP ends on a downbeat note with the Burial/Jamie Woon-influenced How To Become A Stuffed Animal. An ok track but this EP definitely peaks with the first two tracks.
Blurb: Club Soda Records present Seeing You Miserable Makes Me Feel Alive, the new EP from Italian producer Narcofunk. Boasting a myriad of influences but still sounding utterly unique, it is an intriguing waltz through the post-dubstep landscape. The title track is a sparse and hypnotic garage track, taking its cue from future garage luminaries like Whistla and Submerse. Haute Volta (15.10.87), a homage to African revolutionary Thomas Sankara, continues the garage vibe with its dreamy soundscapes and disjointed vocal samples, whilst also recalling the sound of euphoric 90s rave captured by the likes of A Guy Called Gerald and Future Sound of London. The Sea Knows Best hits a drum n bass tempo, its glitchy breakbeats nodding to the sound of Africa Hitech and Aphex Twin before the EP comes down to an unsettling finale on How to Become a Stuffed Animal, a claustrophobic down-tempo number, located somewhere between Burial and Pre-Millennium Tension-era Tricky. Narcofunk is a producer that gives little away, even to his record label. A glance at his soundcloud page shows he has little inclination to compromise to commercial interests with track titles such as Al Qa’id Banat al Na’ash and Just Don’t Call me a Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobic Please. Yet despite his best intentions, an inherent musicality just keeps getting in the way. Frenetic beats, muddy bass lines buried under layers of synths and irresistable melodies are the essence of his sound. His prolific output, greeted enthusiastically by a sizeable soundcloud following, indicate that much is yet to come from the enigmatic Italian. Seeing You Miserable … is released on October 1st and will be available from all digital platforms.
