Leonce - Insurgency (2017)

One of the Fade To Mind princes, Leonce distills various, infectious stripes of US and outernational club music in his own image with the tweaky knuck and shimmy of Insurgency for Night Slugs lil’-sister/LA-based label wing.

At the heels of his edits mixtape, Heatwave and the Shadows EP feat. Neana and Divoli S’vere, he’s fully solo here, slinging nine tracks of subtly minimal but deadly syncopation tweaked to lip-biting effect and in the process placing a unique spin on the serialist club construction sound that’s been trending hard for some years now.

Where other producers in his scene have been exploring oblique angles and the sheer loudness of a track, Leonce applies an icy hot touch to his drums and arrangements that kinda shows everyone else up as a bit stodgy and rudimentary.

There’s a cadence, timing and flow to these grooves that works so.damn.well and where it matters. There’s no EDM presets or bombast, just proper, in-the pocket rhythms such as the Afro-garage hustle of Jungle and with a classy timelessness in the almost baroque jazz twix of flutes, double bass and wood-cut drums on Flute Strike, whilst Marimba Track finds the sweetspot between UKF and US ballroom, and the belting Truffle Track from his debut single makes a very welcome appearance on wax.