Bleep

Powell returns with another choice EP, his first on his own Diagonal Records imprint since 2012. The slyly titled Club Music showcases the London producer at his most obtuse, crafting dense, dark bass hybrids that don’t so much swing as convulse on the dance floor. Opener ‘So We Went Electric’ seethes and sputters like overheating machinery, but still bangs thanks to the relentlessly pounding drum work. On ‘No U-Turn’, a soundtrack-worthy synth arpeggio is looped up and worked on, with everything from wobbly sub-bass to analogue noise slopped on top. Frequent collaborator Russell Haswell pops up on closer ‘Maniac’, a malformed monster of a cut where disparate samples and left-field instrumentation rain down over the muffled bass line like fuselage.