- The colour scheme for the inner label of J. Wiltshere's latest Hypercolour release may just be a coincidence, but its cornflower blues and ashen greys are a handy visual shorthand for the record's mood: a melancholy, Drexciyan funk. There's a lot of that being made these days, but Wiltshere is a vocalist, too, and he applies his plaintive wail on "False Awakening" to great effect. Processed through tinny reverb, Wiltshere sings like a heartbroken robot over a mid-tempo electro beat and snappy 808 drums; there are a lot of ways this could've gone awry, but Wiltshere sidesteps the pop crossover-shaped trap door.
It's a shame we don't get more of an exploration of this sound—the rest of the EP, three remixes of the same track, turn towards the dance floor with more prosaic results. Wiltshere's remix of his own track sidelines the vocal and applies a few edits. Its title—"Clubby Tool Mix"—tells you all you need to know about its modest ambitions. The other substantive rework of "False Awakening," by Tuff City Kids, is a big-room house track that, in beefing up for peak-time, loses the original's weird charm. The other Tuff City Kids remix is better, although it's so different from the source material that it could have wandered in from a different record.
トラックリストA1 False Awakening
A2 False Awakening (Clubby Tool Mix)
B1 False Awakening (Tuff City Kids Remix)
B2 False Awakening (Tuff City Kids Dub Copy)