Charolastra - Hope is Leaving the Club (2019)

Atlanta, GA’s Harsh Riddims introduce Charolastra with an impressive batch of mutant footwork, electro and drumfunk suspended in shifty ambient textures. Really ace album, this, skilfully filleting what they need from vital dance styles and reframing it in a wickedly scratchy, raw and agitated style.

Equally adept at going frenetic, frazzled, as they are at swinging deep and wide in ambient pressure systems, Charolastra toggles gauge throughout ‘Hope Is Leaving The Club’ for a sound that’s conversely full of strong, romance feelings for the ‘floor.

Where opener ‘Pain’ goes fast and agitated with drum funk squashed into footwork patterns, ‘Power’ plays it deep down and cinematic with lush pads and sparing bass punch, setting an agenda that plays out thru the floating R&B/ghettotech castles in the sky of ‘Entrophy’ and the lo-slung swivel of ‘Lust’, before hitting a killer upturn of DJ Rashad-style funk chops in ‘Trust’, and coming with Braindance electro depths on ‘Resonance’, Rian Treanor-esque madness on ‘Alignment’, and seeing it off sweetly with the gauzy soul of ‘Relief.’