Young Smoke - Space Zone Review
rating: 4
Space Zone is Young Smokes debut album for the footwork evangelising Planet Mu record label. The 18-year-old Chicagoan producer remains faithful to the 160 beats per minute template of juke/footwork but manages to buoy the frenetic pace with videogame sound effects that often sound like theyve been dunked underwater and lashings of airy sci-fi ambience. The album starts off with the titular track and a warm vocodered vocal that intones Welcome to the space zone in a manner not unlike Laurie Anderson circa O Superman. The open airiness that is prevalent throughout the albums forty minute run-time is instantly evident, with jovial bleeps flickering with an audible weightlessness. Warnings repetitive vocal sample and angry fax machine thrum sound like its trying to narrate an industrial meltdown of some kind. The aquatic bloopiness of Futuristic Musick and its cold snapping drums are interrupted throughout by what sounds like muted gunfire or slammed doors. The effect is unsettling but denotes Young Smokes brilliant use of space to create parallel rhythms that align to become greater than the sum of their parts. Traps In Space is absolutely thrilling: a videogame bleep that sounds like a jumping Mario on amphetamine and a nagging detuned melody thats basically a whirring robot brain about to explode. Its followed by the equally brilliant Destroy Him My Robots, its use of a deliriously slurred bad-guy vocal sample intoning the track title and a machine-voice repeating the phrase launching counter-measures: incoming ships detected: its the best boss-battle soundtrack that never happened. A pop mentality can be eked out of Korrupted Star and its bouncy hook that reminded me ever so slightly of the track Genesis by left-field pop musician Grimes. The smooth lounge-jazz textures of Space Muzik Pt. 2 provide a chilled outpost half-way through the record. The conceptual theme of space is effectively articulated: visually Im led to imagine a scene from a videogame like Mass Effect whilst this song plays; hanging out on a space-station just off the belt of Orion, trying to set a high-score on an old arcade machine nestled in the corner. Later tracks like Lazer Hornz and Space Breeze are more brash and obnoxious, the repetitive samples taken close to their saturation limit. Especially the latter with its bubbly synths that are as effusive as an acid bath, though it does also contain a sweetly submerged melody that is reminiscent of a 90s club hit. Liquid Drug takes the 8-bit heyday of a 2D platformers audio and plays it straight. Penultimate track High Den A Mother Fucka sounds out of place and would have been better left abandoned on the cutting-room floor. It is the most traditional sounding footwork song on the album and feels superfluous as a result. It all ends with Heat Impact, a relatively decent though anti-climactic finish: all action-film moodiness and rickety drum-breaks. To sum up, this is yet another exciting insight into the footwork scene from a record label devoted to espousing it. With good reason, if Young Smokes debut full-length is anything to go by.