Débruit - Spatio Temporel EP: Review

The EP is a beautiful thing. Self-contained and precise, it allows for an artist to experiment more broadly than they would across a full-length and offers listeners a small morsel of reprieve in the midst of waiting between albums. Far too often the EP has been offered as little more than a single with a few sub-par b-sides thrown in. On Débruit's first release for UK label Civil Music, we are treated to the very definition of what an EP should be. With an album in preparation, 'Spatio Temporel' is a superb stop-gap: it's four tracks providing adequate taste of things to come and ample beat fodder for the discerning club-goer.



Opening with 'KO Debout' and perfectly setting the tone with an imprecise jangle, dreamily pitch-shifted vocals lull you into a false sense of security. A shimmering bassline moves to underpin the creative expression of samples above but to it's credit, the track never lurches into hedonism. 'Persian Funk' appropriates an eastern trill against octaved 8-bits; again the track is restless, but exercises restraint. Closer 'Nigeria What?' sees an African guitar-riff shirk around booming two-step, yet unlike Esau Mwamwaya and Radioclit's 2008 collaboration it refuses to descend into the carnivalesque. Production is astounding throughout as synths, decks, computers, guitars, glitch and live drums collide in a superbly clean mix. Débruit's music is instinctively curious, it's agenda truly cosmopolitan. One might raise slight concern that Xavier Thomas is globe-trotting- an act of aural tourism, as it were. But 'Spatio Temporel's influences, however obvious, are used so modestly that it's hard to find criticism. We await that full-length.