Following the release of his acclaimed album Barely Making Much and a series of self-released projects, Ugandan producer Masaka Masaka returns with XA on Creaked Records, a three-track EP that finds him further exploring the more experimental fringes of electronic music.
Written between Kampala and Switzerland, XA takes its name from the dual concepts of ‘Extended Architecture’ and ‘Extreme Aspherical’, reflecting an approach to composition in which rhythms, textures and structures remain in a state of constant flux. Drawing on techno, grime, jungle and deconstructed club, the record resists easy categorisation, instead finding its footing somewhere between these disparate influences.
Our pick is Say, a wonderfully restless excursion that opens with bubbling percussion and some big sawing synths made for tension building. Throw in a few scattered stabs before a hefty low-end arrives beneath a fractured rhythm, and you’ve got yourself this excellent chaotic interplay of dubby chords and unruly percussion very.
Car horns and field recordings drop you into Kampala’s humidity and heaving traffic, then a sudden slowdown offers a particularly satisfying moment of heavy kicks and distorted percs, before the track eventually dissolves back into the humming bass and skittering percussion of its opening moments. It’s a playful, unpredictable piece of production, and a fitting introduction to Masaka Masaka’s sonic world.
‘XA’ is scheduled for release on 6 November via Creaked Records.
TRACKLIST
1. Say
2. MXL feat. Hibotep
3. Walls