Slava has changed a bit since his 2008 debut, Sunflower. Thus far, the Chicago producer has managed to skirt the edges of techno, hip-hop, deep house, and downtempo, on Sunflower finding an unlikely middle ground between jazz-inspired producers like Four Tet, Moodyman, and Bonobo. On 2009’s Neon Life he made a stop at dayglo electro disco, that, listened to with a cynical ear, could have been attributed to an oncoming influx of escapist electronic music, pining for dreamscape beaches and the atomic colored futures of the past. But it was filtered through the same sophisticated melting pot, all-are-welcome genre sensibility that gave him an edge against producers toiling in their bedrooms with some reverb and a MicroKorg.
Slava’s new EP, Soft Control, arrives with perhaps as much of-the-times baggage, flying in with a tangential connection to the there-and-gone-again social network-born genre, seapunk. A sub-genre that’s apparently defined by its dolphin iconography and ’90s digital kitsch nostalgia as much as its aquatic beat aesthetics (it sounds like an awfully antiquated version of chillwave, which is, admittedly, a redundancy). Soft Control‘s sore-muscle vocal samples and woozy, popsicle-melt textures would feel at home on a Tri-Angle record and the manic eight-legged dance of footwork drives home the point that, yes, it is 2012. But all of that works goddamn well with Slava’s techno-minded framework. Like producers Holy Other or Evian Christ, Slava is at the forefront of artists making compelling, seemingly personal music from often familiar aesthetics.
Soft Control is at its best when it revels in its pressured, bathwater textures, letting the cascading footwork loops drop onto its placid surface like raining droplets of synthetic-colored liquid creating a swarm of expanding ripples. Slava’s tendency isn’t to strangle his productions with the clamp-jawed aggression intrinsic to footwork, instead opting to use its off-kilter rhythms to subvert away from simple tonal wallowing. Aside from the rapid fire “bah-bah” vocal sample and ebbing backing synthesizers on opener, “File,” the acid house keys and gummy bass synth give the track an unsatisfactory, bodily air. It’s the type of stuff that might’ve played to soundtrack time between the sheets — alone or with a buddy — if not for its jagged, bone-rattle gate.
Soft Control strikes a noteworthy balance. It often wavers between the arrangement of a bass and techno record, finding momentary solace in unfolding, incommunicable textures before locking into an apathetic, roundabout 4/4. “I had” and “I’ve Got Feelings Too” both pack breakneck, pattering kick between a steady snare crack as soft, carpeted synths, clanging field recordings, and chirping, lonesome vocal samples bleat and moan. But Soft Control has the compressed, slip-into-your-pocket compactness of (early) Balam Acab or the aforementioned Holy Other’s productions. Despite being recognizably, to-the-minute contemporary, Slava remains assured and infectious. Aesthetically, Soft Control might draw some easy comparisons, but considering the EP’s emotional and tonal outcomes (not to mention Slava’s own production chops) it can often feel more like recontextualization than a lack of inspiration. There’s a cushy through-line between all its married elements that make it as listenable for its nowness as its face-value excellence.
