NAAFI crew member and recent Red Bull Music Academy participant Lao is feeling generous, so he just uploaded a freebie on his Soundcloud account, and you won’t want to miss it. It’s a VIP remix of his 2013 track “Talisman,” and while the original was a straight-up tribal guarachero affair, on this new version he takes it to the UK, injecting it with the coldest of the cold recent-wave grime.
Little is kept from the original elements, like the melodic line and the traditional tribal shakers in triples, which are now strategically placed. But this new version has more to do with, say, the members of Future Brown, than with 3Ball MTY. He explores typical grime elements, like the slow-attack synths and the deep and saturated bass punches, but keeping a very modern approach, playing with negative space and wrapping everything in a very sparse somber atmosphere.