ESG, Liquid Liquid, and LCD Soundsystem; cowbells, scratchy guitars, and hi-hats—we all know how dance punk goes. But what if there was another way? This is the question that Atlanta producer Nikki Nair poses on Snake, having recently turned his attention to rethinking 2-step on his 2023 EP with Hudson Mohawke, Set the Roof.
Collaborations have been a major part of Nair’s work so far; over the past two years, he has worked with everyone from Sam Binga to DJ ADHD—a mark of his flexible charm. Nair’s productions and DJ sets are defined by their eclecticism, swinging from UK garage to trance via IDM and pure pop. His range is admirable, but it makes it hard to pin down exactly who Nikki Nair is. The Snake EP redresses those uncertainties. At six tracks long, it ties with 2020’s Just Reduction as Nair’s longest solo release. More importantly, it is his most personal work yet. His family adopted the snake as their guardian—he calls them “a symbol of my life-force”—and the record’s sound is a homage to the DIY and punk scenes in which he grew up.
Rather than raiding the well-worn dance-punk sound that the Rapture once called home, Nair pays tribute by selectively combining dance and punk tropes. “Worm” joins a ferocious electro-punk beat to a dirt-eating synth motif that sounds like Mr. Oizo gone screamo or Suicide at their most unhinged. “Prowler” has a crudely bedraggled riff worthy of the gnarliest rock deadbeat and a bassline that shrieks like a dubstep dinosaur; and “Snake” is the Prodigy after they’ve blown both studio speakers and label recording budget. Listeners who found the latest Justice album lacking in drama will encounter plenty of roaring filth to satisfy their needs, as will fans of Daft Punk’s rusty, rasping Human After All.
Nair has said that the six tracks on the Snake EP were an outlet for his anger and frustration, which might explain the record’s overblown sound and occasional breakbeat fury. But the songs also reflect confusion and joy, a salmagundi of emotions that helps the EP to breathe beyond the slightly one-dimensional punk smashers at its core.
The opening “Sugar Kingdom” is a contemplative electro number, bass-sprung but sparse and stumbling, to which Nair adds a spookily understated vocal, more gentle lie-down than John Lydon. The result is as fragile as a hummingbird egg. “Catenate,” which closes the EP, maps the improbably excellent overlap between UK garage and the cardigan twee of Sarah Records, a label whose fierce DIY spirit didn’t exactly translate into musical muscle. The lyrics, too, suggest a Field Mice B-side: “You look so fresh/In your brand new dress/I think I’ll drown,” Nair sings, with the amiable angst of someone who has just got his heart broken on Etsy.
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