PREMIERE : Contours – Night Shift [ELE Records]

contours - ELE002

Based out of Hanoi, Vietnam, ELE Records is a fresh imprint run by Sameed of Local Talk fame. With a primary focus on dusty, sampled cuts and edits influenced by early hip hop and house music, they’ve already released a couple of edits by Cottam who gave the classic ‘Escravos de Jo‘ a modern flip. Like their elephant inspired artwork, it’ll be interesting to see if any of their future releases draw influence from Vietnam and the surrounding east Asian scene. As for their second record, it’s a various artists compilation featuring an Unknown Artist, Replete ft Bini, Sameed himself and Contours (soundcloud), who is featured in today’s premiere.

Tom Burford aka Contours is a Manchester-based percussionist, producer and DJ. Inspired by his father who was a drummer himself, he’s always had various noisy things to hit lying around the house. This constant exposure to drums and various other instruments is definitely the reason why his tracks are always rhythmically inspired, with fresh organic sounding percussion bringing some warmth to his productions. Just have a listen to his debut EP ‘Technician‘ on Rhythm Section for an excellent example of the aforementioned.

[soundcloud url=”https://soundcloud.com/boltingbits/contours-night-shift”/]

His contribution to ELE Records’ 2nd outing “Hà Nội Nights” is entitled ‘Night Shift‘. Breezy chords and a delayed sax (played by saxophonist Callum Connell) make your mind wander off to some far away land, until the rubbery bass groove not so rudely awakens you from your daydream. Next thing you know, your feet are involuntarily moving to the the rhythm generated by the mixture of percussion both digitally generated and organic. The reverberating cowbell pattern particularly stands out as it has plenty of room to breathe around the rest of the arrangement and really helps the piece come to a head paired with the fluttering saxophone.

Be sure to check out the rest of the tracks on the EP and get your pre-orders in!


Igor