Album Review: The Keychain Collection by Gang Colours

"No Clear Reason," Will Ozanne's Gang Colours debut, was one of the highlights on Gilles Peterson's sixth Brownswood Bubblers compilation. The track fell somewhere between downtempo electronica and U.K. garage, with a sample of the vocals from SWV's "Weak" augmenting its mixed blissful/distraught emotional state. The following year's In Your Gut Like a Knife, a four-track EP, also edged toward the dancefloor, but its hushed, heavy-lidded, and torpid title track -- with Whitney Houston cunningly overlaid -- proved to be a more telling indicator of The Keychain Collection's character.

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You don't have to listen very closely to tell that Gang Colours' debut album is a Brownswood album through-and-through. Composed of soft vocals, grand piano, and subtle electronic elements, it's a dead ringer for Gilles Peterson's label's typical sound. What makes Will Ozanne slightly different is that he takes away both the usual acid-jazz and soul undertones and replaces them with a stone-faced funereality that brings him closer to James Blake than anything else.

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Gang ColoursThe Keychain Collection[Brownswood; 2012]By Ray Finlayson; April 20, 2012Purchase at: Insound (Vinyl) | Amazon (MP3 & CD) | iTunes | MOGThe piano on the cover to Gang Colours’ debut album The Keychain Collection is a little misleading – but not entirely. Seeing an old upright relic like the one shown on the album cover - complete with Beethoven music book – could well lead one to think the music held within will be of the classical nature, or extremely homely, like the sound of the first Perfume Genius album. Look at those pictures on top, too; it’s almost like it’s setting the scene for you.

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RA's review of In Your Gut Like A Knife, the first single from Gang Colours, threw up Four Tet and Floating Points as possible trajectories for his sound. However, upon listening to his debut album, The Keychain Collection, these comparisons don't seem so useful. Will Ozanne signed to Gilles Peterson's Brownswood back in January of 2011 and there's little doubt that the combination of the brand and the Southampton producer's digestible electronic music will tickle peoples' interest in the same way Nico Jaar's textured work has appealed to wider audiences.

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Southampton producer reveals a classic debut set to soundtrack the perfect comedown. Mike Diver 2012 Contrary to some beliefs, so-called classic debut albums are rarely celebrated for being remarkably cohesive. Rather, it’s standout stretches that commonly characterise the vast majority of successful breakthroughs – from the Arctics to Oasis and so very far beyond, lasting long-play favourites are elevated to five-star status courtesy of stunning passages.

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Ok, let's set the record straight here. Admittedly, the bloodline connecting what began as deep UK garage and the likes of Will Ozanne is becoming spiderweb thin. 'Post-dubstep' by title, but closer to what might previously have been called ambient electronica, it seems the James Blake hit-squad have a new bête noire in Ozanne, who under the name Gang Colours trades in the type of tactile electro-acoustic languor that sets teeth on edge all across South London.

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