But it's an impressive, colorful set of tunes that is arguably the best thing this label has put out, next to How to Dress Well's debut LP. Ultimately the EP is tough to categorize, since it has a clear hip-hop undercurrent but feels more in line with the mixed-genre experimental electronic work of someone like (Tri Angle labelmate) Balam Acab. The lurching first single, 'Gorilla', shows his knack for this kind of thrust: Occasionally he'll drop the beat off for a second, letting things go creepily silent, and then bring a cluster of drums back in for a big payoff.Ĭlams displays on each of these songs this gift for melody and contrast, going blissful on 'Waterfalls' and then into more sinister ambient territory on a track like 'Drowning'. He just does a lot of things right: Vocal samples, which are treated to sound sort of ghostly and haunting, are picked at their most expressive moments, and his sense of build-and-release gives the tracks a momentum that never lets them become too drifty.

These aren't groundbreaking techniques (this production style owes something to West Coast instrumental hip-hop as well as guys like Four Tet and Burial), but Clams' detailed, musical approach makes them feel like his own. For example, a track like opener 'Natural' explores the tension between a tattered, grainy arrangement and float-y, angelic vocal samples- you can feel it pulling you in both directions. Put out by the well-curated boutique imprint Tri Angle, the Rainforest EP is centered loosely on a terrestrial theme (song titles 'Waterfalls' and 'Treetop' not-so-subtly reference nature) and carefully balances some very earthy, textural sounds with more airy, celestial ones. So it's no surprise that his latest release steps away from for-hire beatmaking to showcase original material, five tracks that 'have always existed purely as instrumentals,' according to a press statement.

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