On this new release through Pulsewith Balthazar creates seperate distinct moods across the four tracks that make up his Midnight City EP.
A taught, swirling pressurised summer house track, 'Midnight City' builds through layers of strumming bass and female vocals to create a fairly straight up but catchy track. It is the loose, echoing feel of the rhythm section that sticks, capturing the hot feeling of the night time urban watershed moment the title references.
'Sons of Guns' is a slower and more foreboding offering - synths pick out melodies that create interference with a slightly labour-intensive bassline whilst the sound of distorted gasps of air punctuate the record, representing the windy deserts of the Westerns that inspire this track. It's a dark and cruel sounding environment, the occasional jangling guitar lines not the kind of thing you expect on a house record.
'Hopefully' is more urban and with a hint of the sleaze of Matthew Dear's gloriously debauched 'You Put A Smell On Me'. It's a thick, chunky track of deep electronic bass and robotic rhythms with a dramatic white noise ghost train peak and it's the tightest track offered up here.
The EP finishes on 'In The Face Of Death', a more ambient track than the others. It's a whirl of clicks and warm pads that builds to a cavernous, hollow sounding bass line that ends the release on a suitably climatic note.
Midnight City is released today through Pulsewith.