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Support the label, buy it here: Artist: Keepsakes Title: Lead Popsicle Label: Boysnoize Records Catalogue: BNR241 Format: Digital Genre: Electronic Style: #Techno Release date: July 19, 2024 Tracklist: 1. Keepsakes - Blink And Don't Pay 2. Keepsakes - Quit Your Dancefloor Yarn 3. Keepsakes - How To Edge An Edgelord 4. Keepsakes - Tyrannical Conga Follow #Keepsakes here: Follow #BoysnoizeRecords here: New Zealand is popularly known both for its dramatic Lord of the Rings landscapes and as a haven from the apocalypse for tech billionaires. Perhaps British-New Zealand DJ and producer KEEPSAKES was thinking of the latter when he named his club night and label “HAVEN.” Perhaps, also, living on an island that the rich and powerful believe will outlast some probable planetary calamity evokes an eschatological jouissance marked by paranoia and absurdity. One can sense these feelings in Keepsakes’ Lead Popsicle EP, released 19th July 2024 on BNR, through four tracks of hard techno that eschew synth leads for front-of-mix percussive elements and that, while sparse, are anything but minimal. Keepsakes likes to troll. You see it in his track titles, and you hear it in the first four bars of opener “Blink and Don’t Pay.” Stuttering over a high-pass filtered 4/4 kick is a tom line so rhythmically opaque that it sounds like the EP kicks off with a shoes-in-dryer trainwreck. Soon, however, the pattern resolves in your head, clicking into place along some erratic triplet grid. When the body catches the groove soon after, it’s a moment of dancefloor magic, and the troll is revealed to be a wizard. Shuffle and swing, toms and congas, these are the primary colors of Keepsakes’ pallet, which he embellishes with vocal chops and metallic textures inside of a nitrous oxide dome. One simply cannot imagine talking through “Quit Your Dancefloor Yarn,” as the far superior conversation of the drums is sure to drown out any other. The melodically tuned rhythm feels animated, alive, as if the sounds were bouncing out of the speaker in some soft but dense material form, like gravity-defying, rubber-coated sandbags. “How to Edge An Edgelord” manifests a kind of post-Goa delirium with wild wails of uncanny valley origin. This one has a stiff mbackbone; it stomps and punches, leaving the skittering to the alien chatter of machine elves. What the voices say is indiscernible, but their command is understood. Keepsakes closes the EP with “Tyrannical Conga,” stripping back his production to dial in, hypnotically, on the drum. Texture and tension builds in waves, driven by an unsteady metronome, until its menacing peak is punctured by a laugh, and the process begins again. For dopamine-fueled bodies and internet-poisoned minds, Keepsakes’ Lead Popsicle EP offers a manic dance at the edge of annihilation. After all, the end of the world seems most certain in the places people go to escape it. ___ DISCLAIMER: All tracks are uploaded in a low quality for promotional purposes only and with buy links to respect label and artists. CONTACT EMAIL: hatemusic1@ Follow us on INSTAGRAM and FACEBOOK for releases previews and news: Follow us on SOUNDCLOUD for exclusive podcast series:
