Premiere: Kid Smpl – Promise Emulation

Inaugurated at the beginning of August with Eaves‘ Mauled Heretic, Kid Smpl’s DISPLAY label/series is a new endeavor intended to “showcase longform single-track musical explorations.” If you’re familiar with operations like Disc Magazine, Novembre Magazine, aqnb or JG Biberkopf’s Unthinkable show on NTS, this format will likely be familiar to you, somewhat based in the ambient tradition of extended songs but with far more of a concise narrative bent. July’s MAMI X NON compilation, featuring short mixes from Nkisi, Marcelline, Asmara and more, is another example of the shorter format, this time blurring the lines between original/mix formats in a way that allows for a collagist underpinning and a runway soundtrack overtone.

Despite the mix-cum-collage format becoming increasingly popular, DISPLAY has been established to feature solely original works and the second entry into the series, Promise Emulation, comes from Kid Smpl himself. An expansive synthesis of the hi-stress style style found on the producer’s releases for Symbols, the piece aims to “explore a succession of decrepit futurist locales,” a dystopian purview that the producer, recent relocated to San Francisco, manages without the heavy handed posturing and cloying sci fi motifs of so many of his contemporaries. Largely beat-less, Promise Emulation is a largely textural affair, briefly breaking out into trance-like crescendos and bursts of raw noise, but by-and-large retaining more restrained exterior that recalls Ben Frost at his most subtle. Promise Emulation is out now in full and available as a free download.