Goin' Off/Little Bits of Mischief

Goin’ Off thinks about taking a breaks route, in the way that the drum pads are satisfyingly beaten, but decides to keep its head instead as a strong-silent type, despite the Cockney declarations of a dust-up being in the offing. It’s a studious, open surveying of all around it, with long-ranging synths undercutting new wave-ish stabs, and fractured and refracted techno loops that are mechanically scrunched up and unfurled again, intermittently spin cycled and boiled down. A piece of sweat-mopping, post-rave techno that has elements of electric relaxation aplenty to it, except, that actually relaxing to it is a bit of a problem given the underlying sternness and stresses to Irfan Nathoo’s production.

Give the track a film screen – whether to back brightly coloured Eastern anime or a monochrome peering into the future - and it’s bound to come even more into its own.

The same can be said for Little Bits of Mischief. Urban Response/Riz MC producer Nathoo takes time with an almost springy 4/4 rhythm of rebounding static flanging and warping in isolation, like a mega amplification of a load of bugs scuttling across the floor between speakers. Or raindrops made out of lead. Or a robot keeping itself occupied with one of those paddles with a ball on a string.

Atmospherically detached, it’s not warm-blooded music by a long chalk, feeding off industrial seclusion after the Judgement Day planned by Goin’ Off has been and gone. The barrage of hi-hats and additional drum hits turn the track into a gurgling, gargling android marching line and defining it as a techno tune-out created by worker drones