Image via Daktyl/Instagram
Will Schube still can’t believe Larry David got Salman Rushdie to say ‘fatwa sex’ on Curb Your Enthusiasm.
I am too old to rave (TOTR), but if some faceless Brooklyn Mirage DJ signed a contract guaranteeing that he’d play Daktyl and Benni Ola’s “Matrix,” I would simply have to pop a molly and open up the Uber app. I’ve got a 4.92 star rating…finding a ride won’t be a problem.
“Matrix” is the opening cut from Daktyl and Ola’s Chaos Theory, Pt. 1 EP, out now via TOKiMONSTA’s Young Art Records. There are a handful of artists I trust implicitly (I should really make a list of stuff like this), and TOKi is right up there. But co-signs only take you so far, and the UK-bred Daktyl and Ola offer up a dynamic blend of bass-heavy club music and thoughtfully sketched half-spoken musings on everything from being a little bit crazy to preferring the towels warm and the drinks cold. Don’t f*ck up the order. In short, this is a very good bundle of songs.
Ola’s vocals are plenty satisfactory, but Daktyl’s production steals the show. The opening cut takes an obscure, almost haunted vocal sample and loops it before cutting the lights and introducing a bass-heavy synth and metallic percussion that almost serves as a melodic supplement. There’s an interlude highlighted by a beautiful vocal line from Ola that leads to the drop hitting harder when he goes back to the half-rap flow – then the bass resumes by punching you in the chest again and again.
Daktyl eventually introduces a melody played on steel drums and it’s the rare heat check that goes in. These are straight swishes, a less-than-12-minute example of an artist finding a collaborator perfectly suited to their vision. This isn’t Jordan and Pippen, but Daktyl and Benni Ola have put the league on notice.
