Now Night Slugs are pleased to announce a EP of new material from the producer and label head, his first full work since 2011′s ‘Southside EP’ and its club anthem ‘Silo Pass’.

Expanding on a theme first started on the ‘MJT’ white label in 2012, this EP sees Bok create a replicant funk, built with fragments of classics, arranged with a grime logic and weaponised with 2014 sub-weight.

The ‘Melba’s Call’ video is the setting for the entire EP, reverb from the bare concrete walls of the bunker-studio can be heard throughout. A central greenhouse is filled with a steamy jungle of corporate flora, unsettlingly hyper-real, like the warmth of the record’s sample material is being rendered bionic, pumped through military-grade equipment.

Running through the tracks is the influence of London’s futuristic millennial music, grime. The brutalism of alternating 8-bar structures is the DNA of Bok Bok’s productions. These tracks continue in the tradition of R&G (Rhythm & Grime) and its project to blend the soul of R&B with the potency of grime. Propelled by melody and at times almost sadistic in their repetition, the club tracks of the record play with pain and pleasure, while the two shorter “Greenhouse” tracks allow brief moments of stillness.

And ‘Your Charizmatic Self’? It’s a reference to the source material and the exuberance of original live performances captured and automated. It’s also a message of charm and positivity, of self-realization

Melba’s Call Unpicked @ Dazed Digital >

Both the original mix (released digitally March 31st) and this version feature Kelela, the powerful vocalist behind the smash Cut 4 Me mixtape, released last year on Fade To Mind.

Bok’s instrumental melted in the trash, mangled tape dragging his cyborg funk to an excruciating, ruined Memphis-like quarter-time. Meanwhile Kelela remains as immediate as ever, evoking R&B greats from a cannon she is clearly set to join.

To be played loud and preferably in the dark.

After Bok Bok’s work with the Fade To Mind star Kelela on her Cut4Me mixtape in 2013, the pair team up again on ‘Melba’s Call’, the single from Bok’s forthcoming EP.

After a series of live sets blending Bok’s grime selection with Kelela’s powerful vocals, ‘Melba’s Call’ continues in that Grime&B tradition. The beat blends classic funk production with the unsteady 8bar logic and sub weight that run through all of Bok’s work. Classic samples are subverted for new purpose, an array of melodic detail and DMX drums reverberating in a concrete space. This is grime as deconstructed pop production.

Kelela’s visceral update of the R&B female modality with genuine, self-penned tales of love in 2014 completes the piece.

LA team:
producer: Lane Stewart www.lane-stewart.com
DP: Ryan Kunkleman
camera assistant: Will Dintenfass
styling: Teena Sahebi
makeup: Jacqueline Lea Duffy
thanks: James Flemons

Released March 31st – > preorder on iTunes here   Stay tuned for the video dropping next week!

Download it free via Fadetomind.net/Kelela

Bok Bok & Kelela in the studio to record a live grime set.