- As its name suggests, ‘The Dark Side of the Pony Pt. 1’ is an altogether more sombre and twisted cousin to Jay Haze and Samim’s more lackadaisical (albeit in its own bizarre, psychedelic, unhinged way) album released last year, ‘Children of Love’. ‘The Dark Side…’ is sort of a Detroit yang to that album’s yin, an unforgiving and druggy landscape where sub-bass beats pound and synths simmer evilly.
A-side ‘Tiny Slave’ is a seething slow-boiler; great shards of bubbling acid break and dissolve across a molten landscape of frothing synth and imperious, brooding bass. As the pressure lifts (and it does so in the tightest, most austere way possible – no ‘hands in the air’ moments here), more industrial-sounding tones come in, like acid-house construction workers interrupting proceedings in quite an exhilarating way. On the B-side, ‘Hot Slave’ is like a druggier, more submerged and warped cousin to ‘Tiny Slave’. Steamy synths fizzle, bubble and gradually gather pace as the same brooding bassline crawls on ominously. Great nasty, hot sheets of static burst across the sound-plane as an increasingly anxious-sounding riff lifts the track into something more urgent and directional. All in all, ‘Hot Slave’ feels like the soundtrack to that part of a night when everything suddenly seems to spiral slightly out of control, and everything starts to blur together into one great synthesis of rhythm and sound. A dark and twisted delight.
トラックリストA Tiny Slave
B Hot Slave