**Includes digital download code redeemable from the label** The latest oddball to be welcome into Joel Ford and Dan Lopatin's Software stable is Moscow-born, Brooklyn-based Slava Balsanov. Slava actually established his credentials in Chicago, where he co-founded the Moment Sound label, and released on Jamal Moss's Mathematics, Future Times, !K7, among others. For Soft Control, he's attempted to synthesize techno with "interloping, chrome-dipped footwork themes" - and he's done a damned good job of it, resulting in the most compelling thing that Software have released this side of Oneohtrix's Replica. At it's best, it sounds - seriously - like Convextion making juke, as on 'I Had' (replete with 'Moments In Love' stabs), 'Whirlpool' and the deep blue 'I've Got Feelings Too'. Frankly, this is the kind of footwork derivation we've been waiting for: washed-out, trippy, melancholic, designed not for dancers in the club but for solitary smokers driving through the city at night. The EP closes out with 'Swan', a more experimental cut that teams luminous synth arpeggios with rising strings and Alice Coltrane-style harp runs, to thoroughly engrossing effect. A warmly recommended record.A1 File 4:06 A2 Whirlpool 2:03 A3 I Had 4:35 B1 I've Got Feelings Too 5:31 B2 Swan 3:18
