- Batu continues to set the pace for UK club music on another stellar, often confounding EP.
- Batu makes exhilarating club tracks without having to reach for any well-worn rhythmic patterns. Take "Go Deeper" from I Own Your Energy, the latest EP on his own Timedance label. It's built around an obstinate, inflexible rhythm, with a half-time kick that, in another producer's hands, could easily suck the energy out of a track. But somehow, behind the off-kilter snares and bewildering sonic details, there's a powerful (if lopsided) groove.
"Inner Space" draws from the same bag of tricks, its combination of stuttering kick and rushing white noise channeling the sound of London Underground wind tunnels. This time there's a huge, disarming breakdown to leave dancers suspended in mid-air, before the arrangement comes slamming back in with a killer new snare pattern. On "Deep Breath" he pushes the BPM beyond the 130-140 range for the first time, delivering the kind of mutant club track that Timedance is known for, before it dissolves into ambience on a long, drawn-out intro.
Batu's solo EPs on Timedance usually feel like a special event, and I Own Your Energy is no exception. It combines all the things that you hope for from Batu and Timedance—the way it smartly dodges any obvious genre touchstones, the imaginative sonic details, the razor sharp focus on working a dance floor in unexpected ways. Adventurous, intricate and functional, it's an approach that not many producers can pull off so consistently.
Tracklist01. I Own Your Energy
02. Inner Space
03. Go Deeper
04. Deep Breath