Hawke: "+++"
TobiasThe 4th artist LP from South African DJ Gavin Hardkiss isn’t a groundbreaker (nor is the fact that he’s using a nym – must everyone who indulges themselves in a genre bolt right to the cookie-cutter trappings?) but only if you’re familiar with curveball electronic artists like Winston Giles.
This is MP3-only, a good plan being that it’s for an eclectic crowd that perks up whenever it catches a whiff of Klaxons-like falsetto and twee-ish laid-backness – I could picture dreamy fluff like “Monday Comes and Goes” being played in a velvet-rope dance club, but only during setup and soundcheck, not when the crowd’s filling the place, ie it’s musically pure stuff not really meant for getting feet moving.
“On My Own” is similarly unclassifiable in its Donovan-with-phone-patch vocal effect and quasi-breakbeats, but it’s “Inside Job,” heavily soaked in noisy dub, that separates Hardkiss from product that might look familiar to you.
By Eric Saeger
Homepage: Gavin Hardkiss / Hawke
Homepage: Eighth Dimension Records