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Starkey’s 2008 album Ephemeral Exhibits was one of the first releases that sold me on this whole dubstep thing beyond a few scattered releases. His palette thrilled me. Jangling-nerve synths and cluttery, splattery beats; it was so lurid and woozy and, well, fucking wonky. Yet it was the more melancholy tracks that I fell for hardest, particularly “Spacewalk” with those gaseous chords levitating the whole track, making the dust in the air glow like sparks. So when I first heard “Rain City” (on Dutch label Rwina) it was a revelation. There were those big, heaving synths grinding like tectonic plates but this time it felt more downcast, tinged with regret. It floats in interstellar synth wash, the whole dizzying swell sounding like the soundtrack to a robot romance, one standing forlorn and rusting in the rain as the other glides off into the darkness. “Beatingz” on the flip is all one glorious build, pulling together mangled threads and insistent beats. Layers of synth stack up higher and higher before the wheels come off and it skids downhill, throwing up sparks in this filthy, guttural groove. Turned up loud, it feels like it could crush your skull to powder. Taken together, the two tracks see Starkey moving in a bolder direction, bringing more structural elegance and more emotion into his tracks to undeniably stellar effect. On the heels of last year’s “OK Luv,” it bodes incredibly well for his second album due on the Mighty Mu later this year. [SO]

yukface wrote:

Starkey’s 2008 album Ephemeral Exhibits was one of the first releases that sold me on this whole dubstep thing beyond a few scattered releases. His palette thrilled me. Jangling-nerve synths and cluttery, splattery beats; it was so lurid and woozy and, well, fucking wonky. Yet it was the more melancholy tracks that I fell for hardest, particularly “Spacewalk” with those gaseous chords levitating the whole track, making the dust in the air glow like sparks. So when I first heard “Rain City” (on Dutch label Rwina) it was a revelation. There were those big, heaving synths grinding like tectonic plates but this time it felt more downcast, tinged with regret. It floats in interstellar synth wash, the whole dizzying swell sounding like the soundtrack to a robot romance, one standing forlorn and rusting in the rain as the other glides off into the darkness. “Beatingz” on the flip is all one glorious build, pulling together mangled threads and insistent beats. Layers of synth stack up higher and higher before the wheels come off and it skids downhill, throwing up sparks in this filthy, guttural groove. Turned up loud, it feels like it could crush your skull to powder. Taken together, the two tracks see Starkey moving in a bolder direction, bringing more structural elegance and more emotion into his tracks to undeniably stellar effect. On the heels of last year’s “OK Luv,” it bodes incredibly well for his second album due on the Mighty Mu later this year. [SO]

wow. Big ups for that.

http://onethirtybpm.com/2010/01/27/the- ... uary-2010/