Bet you didn't think the future sound of 8 Mile was going to be moombahton, the mid-tempo electro/reggaeton fusion pioneered by D.C.'s Dave Nada and championed by Diplo. It's an odd phenomenon; like skweee, it feels less like a genre than a meme, but Detroit's Oktored seems bent upon changing that. His debut EP, Moombahton Mixes Vol. 1, set the likes of Katy B's "On a Mission" and DJ Funk's "There's Some Hoes in This House" against slow, snapping snares and loping percussion, dirtier and more narcotic than its peers. This, the inaugural release on the YoSucka! label, treads the same sub-110 BPMs and uses the same "Dem Bow" snare patterns, but it sounds like a significant step forward.
Where Oktored's bootlegs wallowed in dirty synths, there's a newfound clarity and even delicacy to the sawtooths in "How Many Moons" and "Learn, Don't Burn," their fluorescent arpeggios and fizzy chords paying woozy tribute to Zomby, Rustie and dubstep's "purple" contingent. "Broken Car Windows," meanwhile, verges upon Floating Points' full-spectrum rush, with smooth, jazzy changes and an unusually buoyant groove. The buzzing dubstep experiment "Ease Up 1" is less distinctive, while "Most Definitely" returns to the dark, gnarled sound of his bootlegs EP, all cavernous rave stabs and corrosive bass growl.
