Two years ago, Paul Salva's Complex Housing emerged as the work of a producer with seemingly every stylistic option at his disposal. From house to grime to bass, he'd find a way to make anything knock on his own terms, no matter what kind of dancefloor you pointed him toward. What those terms were, though, seemed a bit up in the air-- with the unpredictability of his versatile approach came a sense that he was still synthesizing a great wide open host of influences. Things cohered a bit for Salva last year, though: after teaming with bass music cohort RL Grime to do a trapped-up remix of Kanye's "Mercy" and coming away with internet-going-nuts buzz, he was vaulted to the top of the next-hype pile and tapped for tastemaking DJ sets.
If the timing of Odd Furniture feels a little perilous-- right at the crest of a growing anti-trap rave backlash-- the music itself should still endure whatever gets thrown at it before things settle back down. That's because the DNA of 808 hip-hop was in Salva's music for years, following him from Chicago to the Bay Area to L.A., it's just given a bit more volume and upfront homage here. While the five tracks on this EP highlight a more trimmed-down take on his long-gestating style, it does so with enough nods to a wider range of influences that there's some subtle but welcome variety. And it's hard not to imagine some of these tracks absolutely bulldozing over a crowd at the peak of a DJ set, small club, and huge festival alike.
Take opener "Get a Life", for instance-- a hyena-laughing bass anthem that hammers home a hook sourced from YG's "I'm Good" ("you at the club every weekend/ bitch, get a life") and turns it into something of a self-effacing motto that highlights his DJ grind. Muscle past all the contemporary Southern bounce trappings and there's a keen integration of ghetto house, Miami bass, and trans-Atlantic techno that blurs the line between of-the-moment trends and their decades-old heritage. "Drop That B" feints at some of the more obvious trap rave tropes-- a down-pitched "drop that bitch" refrain and a hard clap rhythm that splits the difference between gunshot and snare drum-- it springs off its simple template to get successively twitchier and more sinuous with each ensuing buildup and breakdown until it sounds like a throwdown in the middle of a hydraulics factory. "Hard Drive" toys with the offspring of juke and g-funk (replete with "Little Ghetto Boy" spark-up SFX), "Rest in 3-Piece" refits icy tech house instrumentation into a fusion of dancehall and circa '92 jungle that straddles generations, and "BBQ" is a hopped-up take on baile funk that filters the favela sound through the streets of Chicago.
Of course, this music wouldn't hit as hard if Salva didn't put together some bracingly complex drum tracks. What separates him from the bandwagoners is his delirious sense of rhythm, streamlined from years of cross-pollinated listening and setlist creation into an almost improvisational rapport between snares, kicks, and bass. There's hardly an eight-bar stretch on this EP that doesn't elaborate on the foundational rhythm of a track, jostling the one and pouring in rolls and fills that rewind waists and scuff the soles of All-Stars and Jordans. The bass thumps, but the beats tumble and scatter, betraying a sneaky virtuosity and restlessness that toys with momentum like few of his peers.
