Frijsfo Beats come with the biggest yet in their series of vinyl EPs, compiling new work from Cardopusher, Desto, Geiom, and Submerse, assembled with the labels distinctive ear, tuned to wilder mutations of garage, techno soul, footwork, and dubstep.
Cardopusher will shock anyone who thinks they have him pinned down as a purveyor of (high quality) jump-up tracks, 'Then What' pulls the covers to reveal the Venezuelan's real talent for rugged techno soul and the kind of weighty but improbably elastic rhythm section that marks out a cannier producer. Though sharper heads will have clocked his recent album for Tigerbeat6, for sheer rewind and replay value his contribution here stands out memorably. Desto isn't the only Finnish producer to get ahead in the hype game recently, but he stakes out his territory in muscular fashion. His remix of Kuoyah's 'Convex Gravity' follows two excellent twelves for Ramp. Unexpectedly but grippingly, his inner bruiser gets the cue to come out chopping and screwing, pitching juke-like drums and vocal buckshot at will and scalding the lot with something like the extra corrosive byproduct of an acid line. Geiom won't necessarily surprise fans of the rangy capabilities represented on his own Berkane Sol imprint and previous Frijsfo EPs, but will nonetheless delight plenty, as he jams a grinding 2step beat with slippery tones and stroboscopic gating on 'Chip Voices', the kind of computer madness Underground Resistance might transmit as a distress call from the Nth dimension. Finally, Submerse steps out, and there's a strong case that 'Bubblin' is his best tune yet, shying away from more blatant moves in favour of a gossamer touch. Low end dynamics are fully present, but beyond the subs it's all headroom, giving the merest after-impression of a summer garage anthem space to blossom. Overall, this is another high value collection of intelligent floor-tooled tracks from the ever-more essential Frijsfo Beats stable.