Swindle – Air Miles EP [Planet Mu]

Swindle comes at grime from a different angle, bringing a unique vibe to the table. He can drop melodic funk or dirty rave bombs at the drop of a hat. His last outing on Planet Mu came on the form of a quality funk’d up remix of Terror Danjah’s ‘Zumpi Hunter’, which came on like a grime, skweee funk hybrid. But with the Air Miles EP he steps out on his own with four tracks showing his diverse style.

The a-side throws down some killer material with ‘Air Miles’ opening proceedings. It sees Swindle in rave mode making a grime instrumental that is so banging and twisted that I’m yet to hear an MC ride it right, but that’s no bad thing as this track more than has the balls for it. The energy is in the melodic tension-building intro; pads and skipping percussion lead into a deadly drop that bounces into action hard and ravey. If you put it next to Terror Danjah’s ‘Acid’ it’s like grime has done a Marty McFly and found its way to ’92, dripping with energy and a massive grin on its face. Another highlight is ‘Daredevil’ which creates some serious hyperfunk without stepping the line into cheesy midi funk tinkling. Its all big brash and snappy, big basslines and instruments that sound like they’re being squeezed through a talky box.

The flip leaves me a bit colder, ‘Coffee’ and ‘Molly’ have a Big Beat feel to them when they whip out the tweaked and filtered guitars, and just step over the line from fun to cheese. ‘Molly’ redeems it’s self with a killer bassline that growls and twists with plenty of funk. ‘Coffee’ has a good skippy feel to it and brings some hi-tech soul. The production, like on the whole EP is spot on, its all so musical and put together amazingly but following on from ‘Air Miles’ and ‘Daredevil’ is a hard task.

His playful style is unique in grime; it brings a hyped-up funk brightness into sets that transcends the genre. The Air Miles EP is party music with hype, funk and hart. Swindle has landed.

Originally written for Sonic Router.

Download: LuckyMe mix #63. Swindle - Klipto Mix

http://www.myspace.com/swindleproductions
http://www.planet.mu/