OCB – Crocodile Tears EP

Having notched up releases as OCB on Casa Voyager, WARNIG and Rue De Plaisance a few years ago, Driss Beniss has been persuaded to re-animate the project via a four-tracker on admirable imprint Craigie Knowes. He’s in fine form from the start, peppering a rubbery analogue bassline and rolling breakbeats with evocative pads, dreamy chords and bittersweet melodies on ‘Crocodile Tears’. He gleefully joins the dots between surging, TB-303-powered acid house, Detroit futurism and bumpin’ U.S house on ‘Autoroute’, before pressing the button marked “classic electro” on the frankly superb ‘Corporate Sound’. To round things off, he adds vintage Korg M-1 organ stabs and synth sounds reminiscent of the lead lines in Orbital’s ‘Lush 3’ to a breathlessly energetic electro-breaks beat. In a word: ace!