Bleep

Sheffield’s 96 Back follows his work on Central Processing Unit, Hypercolour, Happy Skull and !K7 Records pushing the city’s revered electronic foundations in innovative new directions.

It’s often an uncanny experience hearing rave music made by someone too young to remember the heyday of rib-achingly packed warehouses and steamy, sweaty collective euphoria. Evan Majumdar-Swift aka 96 Back is the heir to an illustrious lineage — the prodigal son of legendary Sheffield promoter Matthew Swift and pupil of modern deep house legend Liam O’Shea — but the influence only partly bleeds into 9696 Dream, a singular release which hammers its raw dance music materials into unforeseeable shapes.

96 Back has a penchant for easing the listener into a groove. After the tentative billowing waveforms of ‘Sat In’, ‘Freepass For Them’ hits like a club banger from the word go; a glorious melee of synth jabs and hand-clap snares, a multi-coloured top layer for a hardcore-adjacent, laser-sharp lead. The amniotic after-party glow of ‘Phone’ and ‘Friend Moment’ — featuring Joe Paisan — sit neatly among Back’s breakbeat complexes and fiery arps on ‘Made Me’ and the disc’s title track, two tracks which obscure rhythmic centres and still elicit a full-body groove experience.

9696 Dream proposes a new language for dance music, one where the ultimate pleasure is in navigating its labyrinthine beats.