dunkrat - sequence (ep)

A short one this time but a perfect example of how the shortest project can be the sweetest. Coming in at only four tracks (five if you purchase on bc), this has quickly become one of my favourite collections of beats all year and a clear indication of the sound and spirit dunrat’s looking to portray with their music. This thing just runs at a breakneck pace from beginning to end, carrying so much fiery forward momentum but somehow always feeling fine-tuned; no hihat or kick out of place even when they come off sporadic. Dabbling in various styles over the years from house to raw rap flips, you can hear the influence of a range of genres even on a brief ep like this, in psychedelic cocophonous down-pitched funk on ‘welcome’ or yearning retro-tinged rnb on ‘_want2’. Every beat feels designed to knock and dunkrat never makes the patterns harder than they need to be, with echoing hihats and snares placed around quick hits of double kicks on ‘bakerjoint’, all accompanying gravelly basslines and menacing laughs. I don’t want to overthink the music itself but I listen to this and hear years worth of appreciation, the ep not only deeply ingrained in hiphop but so many various musical influences. I know I’ll continue to listen to this countless times moving forward, but I can’t wait to see what else dunkrat season’s going to bring.

KEY BEAT: new [hot] - this beat’s without a doubt one of my favourites of the year, and I’m constantly coming back to it even when I don’t listen to the whole ep. There’s something about the way they’ve chopped the various synth and piano melodies between the vocal lines that just has the loop stuck in my head all day. The distortion on this particularly track hits just right as well, the high-pitched synth note on the first loop always giving me chills for some reason.