Yaleesa Hall - Daisy Barbara Harriet EP

March 9, 2018 (vinyl only, digital TBA) - Will & Ink

Mysterious Dutch producer Yaleesa Hall is back on the micro-groove techno label Will & Ink only a few weeks from his 2018 outing Zoe Hayley Laura. This new EP keeps the same naming scheme, using the feminine first names of Daisy Wright, Barbara Adams, and Harriet Brown. The names almost spark curiosity, but not quite. The tracks also follow a similar vein to the ZHL EP with dark, twisting patterns layered thickly with bass and just enough saturation to shut off all the lights and let everyone in the room know it’s time to get down. 

‘Daisy Wright’ jumps straight in with a unforgiving drum pattern hits hard but allows enough space for other rhythms to step in and take ahold of the groove if only for a moment. The term micro-groove has floated around descriptions of the Will & Ink imprint and Y. Hall provides plenty. Almost every element at any giving timestamp is doing its own 16th note bounce, chugging the overall track along like a well oiled machine. Periodic drippy bass-breaks dot the track in order to give party-goers hands-in-the-air moments, but these moments aren’t spoiled by any build-up delay. The track goes back in hard like nothing even happened.

The second probably-lady is ‘Barbara Adams.’ This track is in the same headspace as track one, but we’ve moved over from the pitch-black club to an underwater vat of ink full of singing bass-whales. These dark, heavy animals undulate with some of that guttural viscous-ness of the dubstep masterpieces of yesteryear. A crisp staccato hi-hat pierces through the deep, almost acting as a lifeline for the dancers that are sinking into the inkwell. 

This lifeline pulls the dancers right to ‘Harriet Brown,’ the “‘Zoe Price’” of this EP (see previous EP for details). Glitchy noises and texture abound, bouncing from one ear to the other. Compared to the other two cuts on this EP, ‘Harriet Brown’ is the most element-dense, but it remains very minimal in structure. A decisively more hip-hop-styled thumping 808 beat rolls along the low end of the track which provide the largest push to really throw it down on the dance-floor, though this EP falls into the minimal dance move-set as well as being minimal in structure. When these tracks drop, club goers lock in to even smaller personal space bubbles where they can close their eyes, bob their head slightly, and really take in the weight of the music.

Y. Hall is proving to be a dark techno force to be reckoned with in 2018 with two strong three song EPs (though a moody, chopped up VIP mix of ‘Harriet Brown’ is also included on the DBH EP). The EP released on most major international vinyl retailers in early March and the digital release is yet to be locked down, but will be forthcoming. 🍍