
A broody, almost Portishead-vibing slow jam from producer Warren Xclnce, featuring fellow Brit singer/songwriter Etta Bond – herself no stranger to making trippy erotica – we pretty much fired off our first 22Tracks earlier this year with ‘Come Over’ in the final list. Here the North London producer’s guitar swirls as frozen chords stab the dark over anesthetized boom claps, crossing the divide between jazzy Dilla-off-shoot swing, Geoff Barrow noir and narcotic R&B. Bond’s songwriting I always find quite commanding; she fans herself under Xclnce’s ventilated production with a spidery melody, that creeps and crawls across the beat spinning a web of inviting rhetoric. If this track was a cloud of second-hand smoke, it would be exiting a gun. Great record, psychological, sensual and a bit dangerous.
‘Examine Me’ is from a forthcoming Warren Xclnce EP of other druggy joints like the Jill Scott interpolating ‘Freedom’, as Etta Bond’s Emergency Room LP with Raf Riley that bore sensationalist fun ‘Boring Bitches’ is out now to download free here.