For our first release of 2016 - HNH 011 – The Malibu EP - we're back with something a wee bit special and couldn't be more be more excited to welcome Osaka's Malibu to the family. Malibu, AKA Technoman and Shex, is prodigiously talented and not a little eccentric. Knocking out tons of quality music made on hardware, his raucous DJ sets usually end up with him topless and the crowd in fits of ecstasy.
At the age of 12 in the early 90s, he discovered electronic music with Primal Scream and cites influences from classic rave like LFO and Armand Van Helden to the 1960s experimentalism of Delia Derbyshite; from the Funk of James Brown to the Jazz of Charles Mingus – a deep love for dance music in all its forms that is readily audible in his outstanding 4-track for us.
Kicking off with a BANG is I Called U, a prime-cut of piano house that updates classic 90s New York house tropes with a 2k16 spangly sheen. At times both meloncholic and hands-in-the-air euphoric, it's the little touches like the junglist breakbeats that cut across the uplifting piano stabs that make it the perfect blend of naughty and nice. Anthemic in vibe and massive in scope, you'll be hearing a lot of this one, trust!
Next is Satisfied, a deeply groovy number. Fusing a rolling breakbeat with jangly guitars, a fat analog bass and passionate diva vocals straight out of a classic disco jam, hair-raising string swoons from classic garage house, while tight techy percussive ticks give it a modern twist. The result isn't a hybrid or mutant though – with the elements coming together to form a unified whole, one positively generous in the feel-good vibez it radiates.
On Loreatta Malibu comes with a bumpin' hip-house swing. Turntablist scratches and hip hop vocal chants play off Cajmere-esq 'percolator' wubs and a percussion section that pops and fizzles, while a fuzzy bassline and the deeply infection electric-organ riff provide the groove. Bouncy bouncy!
Finally on Jocelyn, our man goes deep and sexy for the 6AM ravers. Nowhere is Malibu's love of 50s bebop clearer than here in the catchy, jazzy piano and synth chords, creating an urbane polish and sophistication, while later on high-pitched alien synth swirls give it a touch of the future and keep things nice and strange.
4 powerful tracks that taken together read as a love-song to the club, the city and the night. This may be the first you've heard of Malibu, but we guarantee it won't be the last.