Video for Juicy Juicy here
youtu.be/TL1Cx-yhGTA
Erupting in a high-pressure spray of pummeling kicks, metallic industrial percussion and disorienting alien vocals, Makossiri's debut EP is a fearless introduction to her unrestrained DIY narrative. Born in Kenya, the Kampala based producer and DJ draws on a wide range of musical and cultural interests, from hard techno and extreme noise to folk-punk and traditional African sounds, spiking these raw ingredients with radical politics, Egyptian mythology and Afrofuturism.
"Juicy Juicy" is her first attempt at production, and documents her uncynical excitement and ambition. An accomplished and intrepid DJ, she produces with a similarly borderless mindset, curling eccentric club rhythms and foundation-rattling rap with sheet noise, anxious drone and a widescreen sense of storytelling. Fractured East African experimental club cuts like 'Lifeline' and 'Moving On' are as propulsive and futuristic as her Hakuna Kulala labelmate Slikback, with seismic, dancefloor-demolishing bass and awkward, robotic synths meeting in almost ceremonial grandeur.
On 'AEIOU' however, she strips her sound back to the bare essentials, allowing Ugandan rapper BLAQ BANDANA to take the spotlight. He shifts rhymes between Makossiri's fuzzed woodblock bumps and eerie synth drones, impressing again after an electrifying appearance on STILL's "KIKOMMANDO". Most surprising is the EP's closing track 'Ossiris Drums' that looks to Cairo with its rousing mahraganat-inspired beat that slides it alongside music from Egyptian innovators like 3Phaz and Dijit.
*** Boomkat Review ***
Drawing on Egyptian mythology, Afrofuturism and radical politics, Kenyan DJ and producer Makossiri impresses with an unhinged rattle of pneumatic techno, industrial noise, post-punk and experimental club sounds. Like the best Hakuna Kulala material, it's tough to classify, or ignore.
It's hard to believe that 'Juicy Juicy' is Makossiri's debut release, her productions are anything but rudimentary. She's clearly had an expansive and diverse musical education, and channels her expertise as a DJ into her wide-ranging productions; the title track sets her vox - somehow in the same sphere as Warrior Queen’s killer album sessions with Marina Rosenfeld - over rolling kicks and clanking metallic percussion, while 'Lifeline' decompresses into a musical airlock of thumping drums and acidic DSP and 'AEIOU' pastes BLAQ BANDANA's laconic flow over an overdriven punk-trap exo-skeleton that sounds as if it's been cut from rusted metal sheets with a bandsaw.
Things only get stronger from here: 'Moving On' sounds like Makossiri's Hakuna Kulala labelmate Slikback but with a chaotic punkishness expressed in the collapsing prismatic rhythms and fuzzy low-end rolls, while Tek Ha' switches the pace completely, pushing an Afro house rhythm into the void and using echoing vocal loops to conjure a moonlit ritual.
Makossiri saves the best for last with 'Ossiris Drums', drawing on Egyptian themes to construct her version of Cairo's innovative mahraganat, building hollow, propulsive rhythms and slowly feeding in grinding, disorienting white noise.
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Dubplates are cut at MAP Charity// Leeds. An alternative education provider working with young people who are unable to access the mainstream school system. Based at Hope Foundry in Leeds, MAP is also the home of the legendary Cosmic Slop Sound System and Leeds Producer Forum which help raise money for the charity. Mastered by Dominic Clare at Declared Sound, also based at Hope Foundry. All profits from the dubplates are donated to support the education programme.