Our Circular Sound — ever-progressive and with a firm eye on slamming the dancefloor — tap London based-producer Portrait for a six track EP that divies it’s time up equally between glass-eyed ambient and stone-faced and smoked-out techno.
We’re treated with 3 tracks of each category, and the EP rolls out one-for-one, taking turns to play with the mind, then the body. All within is gold, but we’ve selected finale ‘Halo‘ as our choice cut.
On ‘Halo‘, Portrait delves the depths: kicking off with a haze of bass fuzz, mystic energies combine as the drums scramble to action patterns. Building into a fugue state, the track intersects prime-time dance energies and slow, atmospheric growth.
The kick is the nucleus around which everything revolves, throwing everything into a slung beat, and then a driving force. Heady ambient swells break on this shore, fixated on that point in the night when nothing suits the mood better than an ice-cold roller, ready to turn the dance dark.
About the midway mark the energy inflates, showing that ‘Halo‘ is much more than a basic “kick + punch” formula. Portrait’s attention to detail comes to light, and the track explodes with microcosms of analogue energy, between each beat the track glimmering with a flurry of pointillistic juice.
‘Halo‘ shoulders certain aspects of techno easily, yet avoids the trap of predictable, overdone tropes. It’s a cold one, for sure, but — as with the entire EP — there’s a lot more at play here than another record of effective yet soulless dancefloor fillers. Diversity of sound, and solid technique mark this record front to back.
Energy Band is out now on Our Circular Sound. Order a copy from Bandcamp.
TRACKLIST
1. Vapormax
2. Decimal
3. Energy Band
4. Citadel
5. Expander
6. Halo
Discover more about Portrait and Our Circular Sound on Inverted Audio.