It’s not often I randomly wake up and decide to write a review of an artist’s EP, especially one that I know very well. The process usually consists of exchanging various Facebook messages about when the review will be uploaded, what it will say, stuff like that. But for this one, I’m feeling creative, productive and fueled on coffee this lovely morning/afternoon so I thought I’d get straight to business. 

Normally, I am a very lazy person. I usually lie in bed on a Saturday morning watching endless episodes of Californication but not today. This EP made me jump out of bed and switch my mind on. It’s one of those EPs which make you want to do something, whether it be dance to it or simply do work to it. We all have memories of the tracks we used to listen to when we were young and stayed up until the late hours of the morning doing coursework due in the following day. The four tracks on this EP will all go down on that list for me and I will remember it for many years to come. 

It’s by Luke Harris who performs and produces under the name Duct. Not sure why, I still need to ask him this. His debut release, Circles is, like all the previous Shades of Grey releases, an electronic masterpiece. It sounds as if someone went up to Duct and said, “Here is a digital audio workstation. Get as much out of it as you can,” and so he did. The whole EP shines through the other releases that are currently out at the moment but there is one track on Circles which I absolutely adore. The second track ‘Love Crazy’ has something about it which makes it stick out from all the other tracks. It has this delicate flow, one which is very hard to describe and it’s because of this which makes me love it so much. If I can describe a track well, then it’s similar to something I’ve heard before, but with ‘Love Crazy’ it’s so god damn hard to relate it to anything else and it just stands out brilliantly. I’d say the one thing in the track that I’ve seen before is the echoing repetitive vocals which fit the track perfectly, as it reminds me of how Scuba used the vocals throughout his track ‘Adrenalin’. 

‘Jessica’s Garden’ is also a pretty neat track. It’s the first track on the EP and I must say it too has this joy to it which makes it different to everything else out there on the record shelves. It’s structured really well yet it also has this quirky randomness about it, such as the glitchy sounds which are so unexpected that you can listen to the track over and over again and not mime it perfectly. I assume he named this track after his girlfriend Jess and her back yard. Lord knows how colourful her back garden must be, it might be a good idea to hold a party there with lots of alcohol and substances with this track playing in the background.  

The EP is released on the 19th March. You can pre-order it on iTunes now. The launch party, if you didn’t go, you sadly missed. It was definitely a night to remember and having Locked Groove perform at the afterparty made it even better. You can catch photos from the night on Shades of Grey’s Facebook Page here. There will also be a video coming soon of the night, which is currently in editing, so you can either relive the night, or you can see what you missed out on! 

Never the less, here’s the official vide for one of the tracks on the EP. Called ‘Pensive Stare’, it’s pretty deep and mellow. The video is also pretty glamourous with some lovely abstract shots of NYC.