ARTBAT return to Diynamic with the Upperground EP

ARTBAT made their Diynamic debut nearly a year ago. Now the duo are back on Solomun’s label with the follow-up, a three-track EP called ‘Upperground’ that lands on 4 January and finds the pair in a considerably darker mood than the one they’d introduced themselves in. Call it a New Year’s present.

‘Atlas’ is the first cut off it. It opens on a kick drum with real menace in it, holds that weight for the whole length of the track, and never once gives the room a place to put its hands down. Old elements and new ones, stacked into each other. It’s a driving techno thumper and it is built for one job.

Then the record turns all the way around. Its closer is ‘Don’t Bring Me Down’, which Dino Lenny wrote and sings on, and it goes for the heart in a way that nothing ahead of it has even gestured at.

Lenny’s the reason that swing works. ARTBAT wrap something airier around his vocal and it ties the three tracks into one EP, so the jump from fists in the air to something near a hymn feels intentional. It’s Lenny you’ll still be carrying about once the kick drums are done with you.