Albums
Themes - EP
2017
Genre: Electronic
Release Date: 2017
By Louis Pattison
Reviewed January 21, 2017
The debut EP from cryptic London artist Naaahhh offers five tracks of murky electronic ambience, though it contains unmistakable traces of UK rave culture.
Kiran Sande, the shadowy figure pulling the strings behind London electronic outpost Blackest Ever Black, is one of those label bosses who can make a record sound essential through sheer turn of phrase. The debut release by Naaahhh comes with next to zero biographical information—just the promise that he, she, or they hail from “under London,” plus a found photo of a hippy raver, cross-legged and grinning on an Afghan rug, with a half-rolled joint laid out in front of her. Luckily, Sande’s liner-notes make up for some of the gaps in the narrative, promising “sidereal downers for all hardcore ravers” and “paranoid street music meets the cosmic disturbances of musique concrète, the MDMA spine-freeze of isolationism and England’s hidden reverse.” With a billing like that, it’s hard to resist.