electronic/dance (bass music, strong jungle influence but slower than proper jungle/DnB)

Millie & Andrea are Miles Whittaker (from Demdike Stare) and Andy Stott.

This album is so damn good. Fucked up, slowed down, and jungle-ish. Dark and nasty, but still playful (probably more playful than most of what I've heard from Demdike Stare or Andy Stott separately). If you made me guess, I'd say Miles had a larger hand in the rhythm programming (just because it's all breakbeats) and Andy had a larger hand in the sound design (because a lot of the low end is clean and lush like his stuff, though it's still got a lot of Demdike's fuzz in general).

play if you like: Paul Woolford's Special Request project (which is the most similar thing I can think of), the more aggressive and monochrome output of Burial or 2562, the Ramadanman EP, the Demdike Stare "testpressing" singles.

no FCCs (no vocals other than occasional incomprehensible syllables and chanting)

1: opens with a short loop of some tribal chanting. goes into spare, clattery, metallic percussion. slowly builds, adding in what sounds like woodblocks, with the percussion steadily becoming more echo-y.
2: shuffling, snapping percussion on the high end, with heavy kick drums. a thick and blown out mid-range melody comes in, and then a similarly blown out melody eventually comes in on the high end to complement that. maybe some fucked up synth strings or horns? kicks drop out, and then get all frenetic for a bit around the middle. all the percussion elements get some low-pass filter sweep at certain points, muffling the high end of the rhythm.
3: opens with an insistent punchy (short decay) kick, married to what sounds like a short 303 style bass pulse. stuttery, choppy, shuffling snares. then they lose their stutter. swirling mid-range melody comes in with a little repeated vocal fragment in the background. slips into a half-time thing around the mid-point. around 2/3 in the melody gets jettisoned, the little vocal sample stays, and the rhythm comes back in full force. after a few listens, "temper tantrum" seems like an apt title.
4: in comes a jerky rhythm with some rolling cymbals on top, and some intermittent claps. a weighty but nimble bassline starts weaving through just after 1:00. wooshy, sandpapery rhythmic accents. and an actual bright melody comes in just before 2:00. then more off-kilter rhythmic accents. there are some rising atmospheric pads in the background around the 3:00 mark, but maybe they stared earlier and i didn't notice them. towards the end, the rhythm drops out for a couple bars and you're left with melody and pads, then it all comes crashing back in. this song feels like maybe you took too much, but whatever, because it's still fun for now.
5: as the beat starts, it's reminiscent of a trap-y southern rap song, but with less decay on the kick (but those same rolling snares and cymbals and that 808 texture). some quick bleepy 303-style notes woven in. total change up to an aggressive jungle rhythm a couple minutes in. then that rhythm starts getting the 303 melody threaded back in (slowly becoming more prominent). and then eventually the rhythm's back to where it started, but you kind of didn't notice it until after it'd changed back, which is always a neat trick. spooky atmospheric pads at points.
6: starts with bass tones that are reminiscent of a foghorn (but the bassline doesn't really sound like a foghorn). chops the bass up like most of the rest of the album chops the drums up.
7: queasy bassline. the kicks are fuzzier and more blown out than on the rest of the album. ghostly choral voices in the background.
8: the beatless atmospheric closer. the main melody might be some synth strings? lush, with some nice static washes flitting in and out, and eventually some siren sounds. downcast but reasonably content. i thought at one point that it might only work in the context of the album as a closer, but then i listened to it randomly on its own one night, and it turns out i was wrong.


highlights: 4, 8, 3