- As with much of his work, Amsterdam producer San Proper's debut LP, Animal, took house as a jumping-off point from which to explore musical side-streets tinged with psychedelia. Two years on, and The Culture EP sees him go through another rite of passage, this time cutting the ribbon on his Proper's Cult label, with four cuts that clank and whirr in characteristically hazy fashion.
"Sirene" clicks into life on a bed of crunchy bass, adding an industrial whirr as it creaks woozily forth. "Thirty Bucks" is the gloomiest cut in a quartet of tracks that never threatens to go near the floor. A spectral guitar line and an impossibly lo-slung bass guitar are its anchors, over which a voice and deep-in-the-mix effects float to create a simmering, meditative brew.
"Wicked Bushes" is another detour, this time into bleepy, relatively punchy territory. Crackly and off-kilter, its squeaking arrows of synth bear down on far-off pads, lolloping bass and more strangulated, distant voices. Closer "Hitch House" pairs a regally echoing six-note pattern of keys with an unmovable bassline and barely-there effects to create a lurching whole that eventually trails off into a distorted fug of crackling voices. Unassuming and rife with half-hidden details and ideas, The Culture EP is an intriguing first release from a label that's worth keeping tabs on.
TracklistA1 Sirene
A2 Hitch House
B1 Wicked Bushes
B2 Thirty Bucks