Slice: Connect Four / You Are the Key [ INNAR004 ]

It’s 2am in the studios at UKCR 1350am in Canterbury. Their show should have finished an hour before, but when DJ Slice and MC R-Vee hear that the next show has cancelled, they decide to rinse on. It’s banging tech-step, double-time flows and double-drops all the way…

Fast-forward a dozen years to 2011: Slice is halfway round the world, underground music has gone through many shifts and mutations, and although he’s still playing on the radio, it’s the Inna Riddim Session, bringing the grit and the soul to the beachside vibes of Bondi FM. It’s been a long time coming; although he’s contributed to tunes as an MC to live electronica act Kobra Kai, and had remixes out under his alias After Dark, today is Slice’s debut as a producer in his own right.

Inna Riddim Records is proud to present Connect Four / You Are The Key by DJ Slice:

I guess I’m not trying to do anything other than be me with my music. I’m a junglist at heart who now writes at 130bpm – so I’m bringing my dancefloor sensibilities, the energy and the rich history and culture of Jungle/DNB into my production.

Connect Four
Don’t be fooled by the lush pads that this one opens up with: cold synth sweeps belie the false sense of security they create and announce a sinister presence. The first hihats flicker into action like lights in a startup sequence across the chassis of a giant mech warrior before it springs into action, surging forward unstoppably in a flurry of pistons and buzz-saw oscillators. Tightly controlled energy and a battery of snares pushes the tune forward at dangerous speeds, tearing up the floor like a power lathe and giving you a direct ultimatum: get in the dance now or get the fuck out of the way!

You Are The Key
If Connect Four has the dark thrill of running down pedestrians in Grand Theft Auto, then You Are The Key is more like chasing Super Mario World: just as lively but using a much brighter spectrum of sound. Warbling, lustrous future-funk melodies vie for attention while the samples anchor the tune in relation to musical history, referencing classic soul via seminal old skool hardcore, and legendary funk via original hiphop. It’s that confluence of rave and urban that keeps the underground bubbling – but you don’t need to know the samples to recognise the vibe: it’s like a mimosa on a summer evening – a sharp touch that perfectly balances out the sweetness. Uplifiting piano chords twist and phase, overlapping each other and draping themselves over the track’s vertebrae: shuffling hats and tight snares. A broad humming sub envelopes the tune with its warmth; when it touches back down in the second drop with a switch up in the notes, it sets the tone for the end of the tune, leading out with a smile.