Sepalcure – Folding Time

Travis Stewart and Praveen Sharma plot further forward paths...

A distillation of the vaporous build up that shaped their eponymous debut, Travis Stewart and Praveen Sharma playing the dimensions of post-dubstep, footwork and R&B off of one another creates an album of a contemporary sexiness. Liquidly precise in a neon-exaggerated red light zone, Sepalcure aren’t over-stressing any great about-turns in the above cross-genre cannon; and for all its allure, their follow-up is plied with a significant amount of negative, resigned thoughts about love and relationships.

These aren’t even on a cryptic level, just vocal licks like on ‘Been So True’ laying it on the line, and ‘Fight for Us’ tapping into classic Timbaland-Aaliyah telepathy thanks to the mood-setting excellence of Rochelle Jordan. Where footwork and maximalism prevails, all broken beat triggers, hyper tom-toms, slivers of ‘intelligent’ drum and bass and footcrabs in fluffy slippers, so does perfecting the art of the swift slow jam. And where one contradiction leads to another, none of these are ever really break up songs – where the chill remains intense, just try letting your love down to ‘Not Gonna Make It’ or the cloudy ‘Hurts So Bad’.

Honouring the Hotflush patent of rugged grace making cavernous bass loads quiver and hover (‘Loosen Up’) and fine tuning the true roots of dub, Stewart and Sharma only indulge in a single night shift of cold blooded head hunting – ‘Dub Of’, which sees Sepalcure’s overall approachable mystery and musky seduction take quite a hit.

In carrying on from their debut and giving it a more personal feel, ‘Folding Time’ tweaks into a malleable multi-purpose listen. Between badly lit back room, haunched headphones and making carnival sound systems reachable, powered by fresh air as much as late night, second hand smoke, it places its sweet but strong flavour on tastemakers’ lips for the rest of the year.

8/10

Words: Matt Oliver

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