Basic Rhythm Still

Boiling club music down to a brutal, incisive essence, Anthoney Hart AKA Basic Rhythm returns to Sneaker Social Club with a trio of sharply honed Drum & Bass cuts for the dance.

With releases on labels as varied as Type, Warp sub-label Arcola, Planet Mu and Future Retro, Basic Rhythm has always presented a clear-sighted vision of what works in the context of hardcore-rooted sounds without ever sounding derivative of what has come before.

Following 2019’s New Style and 2020’s I Don’t Know What I Would Do, Basic Rhythm returns to Sneaker Social with the icy impact of ‘Still’. The lead track runs across the A side in a nuanced sound field of atmospheric impressions, architectural punctuation and an understated but deadly effective beat. With a minimalist approach these subtle touches carry all the more weight.

On the flip, ‘Le Samouraï’ has a similarly spartan palette, albeit with a much knottier rhythmic framework and a more pronounced bed of dread-filled string pads ensuring the vibe remains as moody as possible in a time-honoured UK style. The extraneous silence around the 2/3 marker is the definition of an anti-drop.

Referencing a totemic study of magic and religion, ‘Still (Golden Bough)’ approaches the A side from a subtly altered angle, switching up the textural matter and thus shifting the atmosphere towards something more ritualistic and unnerving. As with the rest of the EP, In something so stark your ears relish every individual element, and yet each subsequent listen brings another dimension of the track to the fore. In the rigour of his sound, Hart once again demonstrates how his rhythms are anything but basic.