Merging as a single organism under the name of Forum, VFMM and Themes For Great Cities affiliate Tim Schumacher, Volkan Simonic and Kevin Lukacz team up for Aiwo rec.‘s inaugural release: a multi-flavoured four-track slab sharing the fragile and elusive charm of an after-party daybreak recovery and propelling quality of shazam’able in-club climaxes.
Velvet-gloved dance ultimatum ‘Yucatan‘ opens friendly fire at once. Whipping up a flight of drubbing 707 shrapnels and growingly-threatening 303 rogue waves over hooting owl samples and lucid-dreaming organic scapes, the track’s melody ebbs and flows between astral flute inflections and out-the-sewer bass gargles, consistently furling and unwinding to generate maximum efficiency either in the sunny afternoon or full night-vision mode. Massive groover.
‘Untitled Modus‘ switches off the opener’s forward-moving drive for a proper trippy breakbeat session. Brushing the same aery atmosphere of luminescent pads and clear-toned synth apostrophes, the Forum trio shows just as inspired when it comes to ’90s woods-raving material and hazed-out stoners. Flip the record and ‘Space Train‘ sails off to a bleeping and blooping interplanetary drift, letting the bass speak whilst comet-like pads languidly fly past.
Bringing the journey to a halt, ‘Papillon‘ flutters and closes the EP in downtempo suspension. A superimposition of delayed drums and wood-blocks converge in a feelgood ballad and it seems too soon to leave already. As of any quality debut, ‘Forum EP‘ is one that does the spadework for the releases to come and outlines possible destinations without lifting the veil too much. We might not be sure where their sophomore iteration will drive us but we already bought our tickets.
Forum EP is out now, order a vinyl copy from Juno.