Mura Masa: Curve 1 review – relentlessly above par

(Pond)The Grammy-winning UK producer’s first album on his new label is a masterclass in hardcore dancefloor and bittersweet feelingProducer Alex Crossan is both acclaimed and not feted enough. The Guernsey-born polymath won a Grammy for a 2018 Haim remix; recently, he collaborated with PinkPantheress on her hit Boy’s a Liar. But his own stuff is relentlessly above par.Crossan’s fourth album finds him on his own label, Pond, and building a physical arts hub in Peckham, south London (also called Pond); he’s also putting out some of the most rhythmically inventive earworms of his career. A generous proportion of Curve 1’s tracklisting has already been released – tunes such as the nimble-footed Gimme, whose shapeshifting production invokes the rave era, or We Are Making Out, a slab of electroclash that features Singaporean artist Yeule declaiming about tongue tag on various modes of London Transport (“We are making out on the DLR”). Whenever I Want feels like an oblique anthem to freeing failure. “I’m allowed to fuck up whenever I want,” runs a vocal sample, the swish of drum’n’bass offset by a blithe keyboard line. Continue reading...