Bleep

UK producer Beatrice Dillon’s full-length debut Workaround was as highly anticipated as it was quietly groundbreaking. Here was the work of an idiosyncratic talent, connecting the dots between UK club culture and the experimental fringes, and crafting a complete picture of frenetic footwork and juke beats sent through a different compositional mode by making esoteric instrumentation perform superhuman feats of rhythm. In turn, 50 Locked Grooves by Beatrice Dillon sees the producer roll out her extensive toolkit to tinker with a smaller sonic palette, and succeeds in proving that she doesn’t even need access to a full-blown host of musicians to make electronic music sound vital and alive.

In addition to containing Dillon’s unmatched sense for finding grooves in the unlikeliest places — a whirring scan, a dub-accented clang, a back-masked metallic chime — it’s possible to hear skeletal foundations of Workaround buried within these 50 tracks. The in-the-room thuds and rumbles of tabla drums, as well as other hand percussion instruments in her arsenal, lend the viscosity of Dillon’s electrostatic house cadences an earthy, organic air.

Even if you’re not up to the challenge of DJing with these locked grooves, Dillon’s knack for nailing an emotive beat with so few resources is a miracle for anyone to behold.