When Night Slugs Allstars Vol. 1 dropped late last year, Jam City was a still-new artist for the still-new London label. His work to date has flitted between heavy-lidded rave-hop (it's easy enough to infer what the title of his Magic Drops 12" refers to) and manic electronic funk ("Arpjam", from the Allstars comp). I preferred the latter; crystalline techno pinging always seems a more difficult bar to hurdle than stoned beat-smithing. On his latest, five-track EP, Waterworx, Jam City paints in the bright, bold strokes that Night Slugs has made its name on while adopting a clarity and purposefulness he hasn't shown before.
Waterworx reminds me of the work of second-wave Detroit techno producers like Carl Craig and Anthony "Shake" Shakir. Craig and Shakir (and their peers) were in a unique spot: The techno sound had been developed, and they weren't necessarily beholden to it. They incorporated house and rave into their compositions. The result was often a level-headed brand of dance-funk that felt clean and precise. Jam City has no need for that scene's fantastical futurism-- Waterworx sounds very, very contemporary-- but it does borrow its linear beats and organized busyness.
Jam City pushes the melodic elements of his tracks to the fore, and the tracks are interesting in part because these elements are unlikely focal points. "Aqua Box" takes the recent proliferation of rave sirens and turns it on its head, offering a distended, zombie-fied bleat. An industrial hammer of a synth patch powers "Countess"; the peeling scythe that interrupts it reminds me of the pitched strings in Britney Spears' "Toxic". "Waterfalls" is softened by electric pianos and Villalobos-like chants. The only track that doesn't maintain this pattern is the widescreen "Island", which shoots chords toward the horizon then aims drum rolls at them. The bass on Waterworx-- thumping mallet hits, ever so slightly fuzzy-- confirm a producer who's spent his formative years in the bass scene but never became obsessed with it.
Though a good fit on the Night Slugs roster, Waterworx positions Jam City among artists like San Francisco's Salva and Nottingham's Lone (he lacks Lone's knack for winding melodies) who have dropped bass music like an Alka-Seltzer into techno and rave. (There's lots of fizzing, and it may take a few years before they learn how to make it taste good.) Waterworx is an obvious step forward, the first clear sign of direction from an exciting talent.
