Scratch N’ Itch

Scratch N’ Itch

Riva Starr [Southern Fried Records]...

23 May, 2008 | 4.17PM

• Section: Music Recommendations
• Written by: The Last Real DJ Alive

Good buddy of the revolutionary Dirty Bird Records and no stranger to a release on that imprint, Italian-born Riva Starr has cooked up an exciting EP in the junkyards of London for Southern Fried records.

The title track ‘Scratch N’ Itch’ is a slow-burning roller coaster of a record, with an off-kilter lead synth that bends and dips in such a fashion that it will make you look like you’ve developed a nervous twitch when dancing to it.

This melody flips and folds into all manners of weird tonal directions – something Riva Starr should be commended for – it’s so damned brave and original.

This production might be a bit too weird for some, so check it out before you buy it.

There’s no no doubt many of you will love ‘Scratch N’ Itch’, though.

The boldly titled ‘House Music’ is obviously referring to house music from the Nth dimension; such is the forward thinking behind its design.

Expect an unformulated bassline that drifts almost carelessly across the monaural field, complemented by muddy, burbling effects and a plodding beat.

Things do become a little saner on the bridges and breakdowns, with a really cool high-pass filtered Detroit pad and old skool hardcore-style female scream straight out of the “I GOT THE POWER!” textbook. We likey.

‘Jack My Bell’ is a tech house lick, stuffed with brain-melting acid basses and incessant slabs of slushy sub.

To round off this original EP, comes ‘I Know You Want My Thong’.

The vocal inside this thumper actually says, “I know you want my THING”, so we can only assume that Riva Starr had drunk too much Coca Cola during the composition of this filtered, gritty roller to make out the correct words.

To sum up – if you want tripped-out audio, then you’ve come to the right place.

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