Album Review: Rinse Presents: Brackles by Brackles

BracklesRinse Presents: Brackles[Rinse Recordings; 2012]By Will Ryan; June 11, 2012Purchase at: Insound (Vinyl) | Amazon (MP3 & CD) | iTunes | MOGTweetRob Kemp showed up late last decade as Brackles with a number of 12"s and collaborations with Shortstuff, fellow Englishman and co-head of Nottingham-based Blunted Robots. Kemp pedaled a precise, primary-colored mixture of house, garage, and funky in a kind of spit-shined take on a classic London sound. He bounced around top-shelf labels like Apple Pipe, Planet Mu, and Brainmath before landing on Rinse Recordings in 2011 with two excellent 12"s in the run up to his first proper full-length.

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After a string of big 12-inches for the likes of Apple Pips and Brainmath over the last handful of years, one of the UK's freshest voices went silent in 2011. Brackles released just one record last year, a two-tracker on Rinse with the promise of a full-length to come. More than six months after that teaser, Rob Kemp's first album has finally arrived, and it's no wonder we haven't heard from him in a minute: Rinse Presents: Brackles is a cohesive, singular statement that finds his sound truly rising to the occasion.

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Signing to Rinse FM’s own label was a natural progression for Brackles after releasing work on Planet Mu, Apple Pips, and securing his residency at London’s original dubstep night FWD; the signs were always there. Rinse Presents: Brackles is the outcome of a year of silence from the producer, with only one single release to his name in 2011; the outcome, though, is an impressive piece of classic future garage. Managing to strike the balance between dancefloor and commercial success is always difficult for a dance producer to pull off, but Brackles’ mix of vocal tracks such as “Go Ahead” and the opener “Never Coming Down” sits perfectly with the pure club numbers such as “Too Much” and “Squarehead.

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Rob Kemp’s journey to releasing an album as Brackles with a ‘Rinse Presents…’ prefix is a fairly standard one. He first jumped behind thedecks in his bedroom at the age of 15, before decamping from Nottingham to London, becoming a regular at legendary dubstep night FWD>>and landing his own weekly show on Rinse FM.This happens all the time. However, his reputation is one of gliding through genres, predominantly UK funky and garage, all of which come throughon his debut album and follow-up to last year’s single, ‘12” Number One’.

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