Devils, Dames N Debauchery
is the newest release to come out of Ragtime Records, showcasing the latest
music from the hottest producer in American electro swing: Duke Skellington.
Having joined Ragtime Records back in 2017, he has become an absolutely
essential part of the team, regularly putting out top quality tunes, and
demonstrating himself to be right up there with the rest of his labelmates.
This most recent EP has been out for almost a week now, and has been certainly
been making something of a stir.
The EP opens with ‘Name in
Lights’, which with its percussive intro played on brushes, starts off as quite
a laidback number. One of the interesting things to notice with this track – a
theme that will continue throughout the EP – is that there’s just as much focus
on the musicality side of things as on the beat, particularly singer Kumiho’s vocals,
which is a very welcome change from much electro swing. As the track builds, we
arrive at an incredibly glitchy drop, which also helps to set the tone for the
EP, which includes a fantastic saxophone line over the top of things as it
develops. The next track is ‘Hot Jazz’, the first official remix on the
release, which like ‘Name in Lights’ features a similar emphasis on sultry,
female vocals. Starting off with a strong house beat, this track goes on to
present some very low, dark basslines that will sound incredible over a massive
soundsystem. But we still find this focus on musicality – in fact, halfway
through the beat cuts out entirely, highlighting this even further.
‘My Mind’ follows, featuring our
third powerful female voice – this time Alanna Lyes, who’s popping up
everywhere at the moment, and deservedly so. ‘My Mind’ also opens with a strong
house beat, underneath some gypsy guitar, and scratching – showcasing a wide
variety of sounds that all work considerably well together. There’s another
huge glitchy drop in this one, and the variety in sound continues, through its
wobbles interspersed with slap bass. I also really enjoy the skilful reed
samples towards the end. The second official remix come after this, with the
return of Kumiho: ‘Spooky’. The track starts off very minimally, and isn’t the
most stimulating, although the piano that comes in does manage to sound very
fresh – despite being a regular feature throughout this genre. The saxophone
that emerges could be mixed slightly better, and sits a little uncomfortably on
top of the rest of the mix, but overall this is still an enjoyable dance
number.
Towards the end of the release,
‘Dames’ presents a very uptempo, danceable track, which starts off slightly
uneventfully, but builds and builds and builds. As it develops, more and more
excitement and interest creep in at every turn, including a kind of electronic
walking bass during the first drop. It’s actually surprising just how much
happens in this track if one listens closely enough. And finally, ‘Hit That’
presents another song featuring a bassline which will be incredibly powerful
when played over a large soundsystem. We begin relatively lowkey, with a
Spanish-sounding guitar that develops into some nice gypsy jazz lines, and as
the song progresses, we hear what’s possibly the biggest and most anticipative
build-up I’ve ever heard in an electro swing track. Again, this track also
manages to keep a high focus on the musicality – not so much vocally in this
half of the EP – but in this song for example, we have all sorts of
interweaving instrumental samples.
Duke Skellington has made a real
achievement here, through a release which features brilliant elements of both
musicality and danceability. So often when creating electronic music, a
producer has to sacrifice either the beat and excitement of a track, or make it
musically quite dull. In this situation, Duke Skellington has demonstrated
excellently that one needn’t forfeit either aspect of the music in order to
satisfy the other. Across the release, almost every song showcases just how
well this can be done, and I’m very glad that there’s a producer in electro
swing who can do it just as well as he can. There’s clearly been a lot of
effort put into this EP, and the resultant quality shows this. I’ve been
wondering for some time now when the American producers of electro swing will
catch up with the European ones, and with releases such as this one, it is
undeniable that this time has now come.
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