- Mix Mup has been on a roll since a 2012 mini-LP with Kassem Mosse brought him to wider attention. It helped that by then his style was fully formed: a strange, cryptic take on house music, melodically unusual and rhythmically devious. 2013's After The Job for Hinge Finger showed that he could make big gestures in this way, albeit deeply eccentric ones. This EP for Belgian experimental label Meakusma finds the producer on subtler form.
Opener "Seaweed," a superb slice of deep-sea funk, is the record's oddball apex. Its snippets of percussion and glutinous synths float past like weird-looking creatures in the abyssal murk; in the low-lit midpoint breakdown, it's easy to forget we're in a house track altogether. "Wellpappe" doesn't hold together quite so well, its warped melodies barely audible behind a clodhopper kick. By the time "Plastic Bag" comes around, lifting us from the sea floor, it's a welcome change. The bubbling synths and fidgety tin-can percussion gesture at Mix Mup's brighter side, though the track remains a thoughtful deep soak rather than a source of easy thrills. As the record wraps up with "De Balkons," a puzzling snippet of street noise and synth noodling, Mix Mup leaves questions teasingly unanswered.
TracklistA1 Seaweed
A2 Wellpappe
B1 Plastic Bag
B2 De Balkons