Julian Muller delivers six emotive, heart-pounding tracks on his latest project, an EP which references classic rave and drum & bass that evokes the full spectrum of feeling that goes along with a long night out.
The welcoming vacant grin on the cover, that classic acid house yellow smiley face, is a bit misleading. This EP builds to enormous intensity, but there’s isn’t really any acid and there’s certainly no house. Instead this EP delivers a gorgeous journey through just about everything else from downtempo electronica on the opener right through to high-octane rave.
It really kicks off with “Wet Coast”, a high-pitched operatic choir of voices building up a high expectation which the track handily delivers on with a super danceable melody line and a massive dark kick that borders on trance. One imagines a slow drive down some remote coast at sunset, on the hunt for a secluded party.
There’s a touch of drum & bass influence on tracks like “Juicy”, so that when the massive kick drops in, you’re caught off guard. The rave stabs might harken back to the old school, with some tracks sounding like they might have been lifted right out of the best parties of the 90’s, but he manages to keep it super fresh by endowing the tracks with a heft that could not really be achieved back then.
These influences may seem disparate but the EP flows seamlessly, Muller pulls off everything from rolling baselines to drifting spacey synths with deceptive ease. Hi-hat grooves slice right through the niveous synth production. Much of electronic music production now tends towards minimalistic caution, with many projects aiming to be too cerebral or cool to just be rave music full stop, and it’s nice to hear mainly tracks that are unapologetically loud and made for a huge warehouse somewhere in France.
It is a tough feat to make dance music that is emotive, without winding up too cheesy; but Muller pulls it off with ease, especially on “Until the Sun Goes Down” which captures that exact wistful melancholy one feels at the end of a perfect day. Same on the closing track, aching piano chords unexpectedly combined with a catchy rap delivered over snapping liquid drum breaks. The EP is a testament to the full spectrum of emotion one can feel as a night out bleeds into day, euphoria giving way sometimes to loneliness and regret as reality reasserts itself after a night of dancing and dreaming in laser-drenched darkness.
-Winston Mann
Link – Bandcamp
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