Premiere: Dreams – “Reactor (Devil Mix)”

Already three releases into their globally leaning World Series in as many months, London imprint Trax Couture is taking the show to Los Angeles by-way-of Private Selection co-boss Dreams. The first three volumes in the series have come from Trax Couture principal Rushmore, Chile’s Imaabs and France’s Sylvere respectively, the result a trio of drum track-minded EPs that press on several key touchstones in the last two and a half decades of elemental dance music. Vol. 4 sees the series’ first American contributor in Dreams and the Angeleno’s acumen for trawling everything from classic jackin’ house to South African gqom and new age into his productions makes the EP as a whole a thrilling listen. Like most of the series, Dreams’ contribution doesn’t hit on one genre, but his sound palette is immediately recognizable, a series of raw, percussive notes that can be recognized from classic drum machines and samplers, as well as core elements of grime, ghetto house and Brit-style techno. That runs true until EP closer “Reactor (Devil Mix)”, an ode to Wiley’s mixes of the same name and step out of the World Series’ unremitting flow. Whereas “Esoteric” pummels with cyclical kicks and 808 cow bells, and “Dead Zone” falls into a half-step swing replete with pulse-like hits and crashing glass, “Reactor (Devil Mix)” is more in line with Mr. Mitch’s Parallel Memories or Strict Face’s Marble Isles. Its cerebral face hides a churning underbelly of melancholy and solitary loss, a necessary flip to the unremitting aggression of the rest of the EP. World Series Vol. 4 will be released on January 21 and clips of each respective track can be streamed after the jump.