- Other Side
- Mic Man
- Beans
- That Certain Something
Diskotopia is elated to launch into 2016 with the indelible Other Side EP from the inimitable Shy One.
In addition to hosting her always incredible radio show on Radar Radio, Shy One released both her debut EP and LP with DVA Music and was also featured on Big Dada’s Grime 2.0 compilation as well as the Diskotopia VA Vol.1 compilation back in 2012. Here the Other Side EP is a presentation of tracks in which Shy One conveys a sense of exile; a grey and green insight into a suburban life of living and working in solitude surrounded by flora and concrete.
Other Side brings us down to an otherworldly cellar with hovering synths and a disembodied vocal chant that eases into a broken g-funk groove. Fit for any forward-thinking function, Shy One makes prime use of all-encompassing sub bass, nimble percussion and Sheffield-indebted bleeps to bring Other Side to another level of dissociative dancefloor immediacy.
Moving the proceedings to carnival territory, Mic Man adopts a jump-up feel full of neon-flavoured rubbery synths, island percussion and a dash of Northern bassline that would sit right at home atop a bionic palm tree. Just as Mic Man says, “Don’t be standing back there like a plum man I wanna come out here and do my shit with my DJ!”
The digi-calypso vibes of Beans are dashed with generous helpings of codeine-soaked boogie, bashment deconstructed riddims and an undeniable swing. Beans soundtracks both the warm up to an intense night on the horizon and concurrently smooths out the the toasted come-down hours later.
Shy One swerves to the left a bit with That Certain Something as cerebral pads coalesce with transitory frayed electronics. Free-form in spirit yet tethered to this mortal coil by poetic percussion and heaving subs, That Certain Something invokes the spirits of generations of UK soundsystem culture and beyond.