Merv

Amsterdam label Taped Artifact has lined up an EP from Merv aka Brian Oldenborg and Jan Christiansen. After the Re-Melted reissue on Styrax in 2015, this is the pair’s third new EP in three years since coming back after first making music back in the mid nineties. Their warm dub and techno style is still very much fresh and arresting. Blueprint opens the EP with eight enthralling minutes of percolating drums and shuffling hi hats. Frosty yet warm, it’s a cavernous affair with a hypnotic riffs sucking you in over and over. Shine is more upright techno, but the rock solid kicks are still draped with rippling, static coated chords that ripple out in all directions. Rotundum closes things out with synth waves gently breaking over hunched drums that build the pressure. It’s tense and engaging while remaining thoroughly atmospheric.

• 1 Blueprint
• 2 Shine
• 3 Rotundum