Not many can say that Björk has played their track while DJing at the Venice Biennale, but, as of last weekend, Rian Brazil is one of them. The Brighton-born producer, also praised by pop star Lola Young, is a master of earworms, which he weaves from the sample-heavy sounds of the UK underground and the saccharine highs and bassy lows of his vocals. On first listen, you might mistake the huge range of his melodies for Auto-Tune, but this, impressively, is Brazil’s raw voice, modulated vocally to achieve deeply vulnerable performances that set his sound apart from his rap-focused peers.
Engine Heartbreak EP: A Sonic World
Across his forthcoming Engine Heartbreak EP – including drum’n’bass love-song Bullet Caught in a Spiders Web, the gospel-inflected Things 2 Make U Smile and the glitchy A Butterfly Was Born – Brazil creates a sonic world that is as addictively online as it is yearning for IRL contact. Amid the radio-style chaos of his production, which recalls Jai Paul’s infamous 2013 Leak 04-13 (Bait Ones) or the new-gen sounds of his peers The Sound Chalk Makes and the Twins, there are sonic relics and lyrical references gathered from a youth in the backend of England – in Brazil’s case, Hollingdean, Brighton.
Here, we find the soul-inflected sounds of church, the happy hardcore played by a former raver mum, ripped MP3s streamed on the school bus through cheap headphones. The result is a sound that propels you through the present, while reminding you where you came from. In Brazil’s words: “a futuristic version of the grime-obsessed kid who grew up smoking ciggies on Barrow Hill”.
This Week’s Best New Tracks
Jorja Smith – What’s Done Is Done
Getting her song-of-the-summer contender in, Smith acts as coroner for a dead relationship over a heavily bassy beat. There are the plucked strings and skippy hi-hats of UKG, but it’s no nostalgia trip.
Helado Tropical – Tocando
A once-certain relationship is slipping through a lover’s fingers on the first taste of Helado Negro and Fabi Reyna’s duo album, though there’s no urgency in their sweet guitar, lo-fi fuzz and unruffled voices.
Show Me the Body – No God
The hardcore punk trio reject religion in favour of earthy immediacy on this brutally funky, massively danceable neck-snapper: one to lovingly hurl your mates around to.
The Avalanches – Together (ft Nikki Nair, Jessy Lanza and Prentiss)
Infatuation and disappointment – “you could never picture me at home crying over my telephone” – inhabit this electro-pop candyland, part of its beat made up of the click of a camera shutter.
Overmono – Lockup
Putting a chopped-up, pitched-up vocal sample against bass-driven tech-house could be formulaic, but the returning duo masterfully invert the form with chaotic head-rush detail – festival season can’t come soon enough.
Alys(alys)alys – Effervescence
So bassy you can practically feel the walls wobble, the Berlin-based Brazilian producer’s latest feels more perilous than its bubbly name: a ricochet of splintered vocals and increasingly overwhelming drums.
Ivy Knight – Beacon
Beautifully produced by Deer Park (better known for his underground rap collabs), this track sets crisp acoustic guitar against amorphous bass as NYC singer-songwriter Knight summons a spectral mood.
