Set the Tone EP

Ossie is a 22 year old producer from East London, who’s debut EP ‘Tarantula’ came out earlier this year on the Lightworks label. His follow-up for Hyperdub is a three tracker of percussive house and beats, which is contemporary while giving a nod to the pioneers of electronic soul and fusion of the 70s and 80s. The EP starts with ‘Set The Tone’. It’s been a feature of Kode9’s sets for about six months now, and doesn’t fail to get bodies moving. The track opens with a dazzling lattice of latin percussion over a driving, off beat kick drum, before the song breaks into an infectious vocoder accompanied by lush Rhodes chords. It’s one of those songs that manages to mix the worlds of dance music abstraction and catchy song writing without falling into obvious tropes. ‘The Power Of Love’ mixes similar elements in a completely different way, zoning into a more Masters At Work vibe. Here a short vocoder repeat and swelling synths roll out over a big bassline and a swung garagish drum pattern, but it’s the depth of production that really builds the intensity here, as unexpected elements such as huge orchestral strings and spooked synth lines are woven in and out. Finally, on a completely different tip, is ‘Moves’, slower but still perhaps even more danceable. If it wasn’t for its rasping, grimey bassline, and some classic house strings and xylophone towards the end , it could be mistaken for a long lost Sa-Ra dub or the instrumental for an R&B classic.