I wonder whether Greg Feldwick aka Slugabed will ever upgrade his studio setup. The London based musician is still adamant that everything released is fully composed through Fruity Loops 4, with an added splash of an external drum sampler to develop the sounds. I wouldn’t exactly class the studio software in the same way as the seminal TR-808 drum machine, but the years of using and abusing has given him a real inside-out knowledge and have had his peers scratching their heads over just how he does it.

On first listen the Moonbeam Rider EP really isn’t too different to last year’s Ultra Heat Treated EP or in fact dissimilar to much of his back catalogue. Slugabed stays true to his notions, studiously creating layers of thick compressed synths that warp and bubble through the bottom end whilst fizzing and sparkling over the top.

The attention towards refining these layers of refreshing sounds is incredible, and fits along well with artists such as Rustie, Joker, Ikonika et al. In some respects it can be too subtle to grab the attention of a fly-by listener. But there is a lot going on. Take ‘Moonbeam Rider’; it crackles, hisses, and sounds actually a little seedy and 80s before a pumping semi-funk bass/beat combo. It has a real swagger, and there must be about 6 different melodies simultaneously playing over the lurching hip-hop beat. Compare that with ‘Heck Flex’ and you get a different mood, a semi-trance, bit-crushed vibe that sounds a little melancholy.

With its slightly humorous vocal sample ‘My Sense of Smell Comes And Goes’ furthers this glitchy 8-bit sound before the short ‘Nu Krak Swing’ and its obvious hint towards the fusion genre of the late 1980s/early 1990s. Maybe that track is a sign of things to come.