18 for 2018, #8/9: Flora FM

It’s always great to discover a new artist that’s on your wavelength, and the first two EPs from Taylor Hawkins’ Flora FM project are right up my alley. Taking the current trend for breakbeats and 90s ambient house influences, and adding a slightly tougher Detroit sensibility, these hardware-driven tracks manage to sound simultaneously old-school and of-the-moment. Eternal Huron Shadows, on the Argot record, is probably the one I’ve played most this year, with its bubbling acid line and rolling drums; and Elm Bully, on the Vanity Press release, is just a perfect techno track which wouldn’t be out of place on ART in 1993 – it sounds like Carl Craig jamming with Stasis.