Bleep

Much can be said for the sci-fi inspirations of 90s electronic music, exploring alien worlds and hyper-technological concepts with dizzying synthetic sounds. Speedy J approached techno from a different angle, however: “No matter how electronic it goes, music is still a thing of feelings, it comes from the inside, from the heart.” His debut album as Speedy J is the sixth in Warp’s Artificial Intelligence series, and rather than echo AI’s cyborgian connotations, Ginger gets right to the heart of the series’ “electronic listening music” spirit with lush, worldly sounds.

An aromatic blend of tabla, gamelan, drum machines, and synths circle through the album, placing the tracks in a liminal space between sonic cultures (a fourth world, perhaps?). When making Ginger, Speedy J wanted to step away from Rotterdam’s hardcore rave scene, instead finding himself at an intersection of globally sourced instruments, downtempo and ambient sound design, and his influences of “the black roots of dance music”, culminating in tracks like ‘Beam Me Up!’ where energetic, funky loops (courtesy of Reuben Wilson) and sloshing tech house shuffles are met with jittery vocal slices and sparkles.

This mesh of sounds and styles adds an enchanting veil to Ginger’s vigorous yet verdant world. Heavy kicks shape the title track, with a high pitched string drone holding everything aloft in a curious space as minimal layers slot in and out. A rich array of percussion enters, shaking chimes and resonating bells, cementing the mystical quality the track was hinting at all along. We continue through this captivating realm, glazed with choral synths, where beats constantly rise in altitude until reaching the album’s zenith of club dynamism with the pneumatic breakbeat rhythms of ‘Pepper’.