Always inventive, never one to follow vogues or fashions, and instead, when partnered with Andrew Weatherall, often creating them, Hugo Nicolson has a new EP out on Higher Love Recordings. Nicolson may forever be associated with his classic, ecstatic, downtempo “Balearic Beat” collaborations with Weatherall, but when left to his own devices the speed he seems to prefer is “lightning / headlong”. 

Little Kind immediately sets the pace. Boisterous, bumping, uptempo, uplifting, pitting distorted chimes against fierce, gated fanfares. Part prog house, part kosmische motorik, the track briefly breaks down to a wash of spectral organ sounds before siren-like – klaxons not aquatic femme fatales – big buzzing, dodgy electrical contacts, announce its banging back in. 

Spanner features a spoken vocal, lines of libertarian rave poetry. Talk of connection, frequencies and freedom, carried by huge unruly sonic swirls and a skipping tribal beat. The kick is cavernous, a heavy, reverb-ed thud. The bottom end, deep, ominous, badass. Again there’s a breakdown, this time to a wheezy squeezebox and shaken bells. When the party returns it has its arms in the air, blowing, blasting on warped carnival whistles.  

Zombie is an electro / synth-pop stomp that opens with twisted, trebly Morse Code bleeps. Nicolson then introduces a chunky, groovy B-line and dub techno textures. Transforming everything with twanging, rubber band stretching, phasing, filtering and EQ-ing, as he goes. The main hook is a nagging, high-pitched riff, but as the drums become more determined, this is countered by layers of warmer, softer, continually morphing melodies.  

Hugo Nicolson’s Black Stick can be ordered directly from Higher Love Recordings.