Let The Smoke Fill My Lungs

Hanni El Khatib “Stressy”

“Stressy” is built around the sort of processed breakbeat that was just about the coolest thing in the world in the late ‘90s but is hard to come by now – hard and fast and full of clattering cymbal ambiance, like “Tomorrow Never Knows” but more shambling. Hanni El Khatib uses this as the basis for a garage rock song with the psychedelic sample aesthetics of The Chemical Brothers and The Dust Brothers. “Stressy” expresses a teeth-gritting angst and has a rather dark tonal palette but it sounds like catharsis to me, with all the shifts in rhythm relieving a physical tension rather than tightening up. It feels more like “and now I don’t fucking care!” than freaking out.

Buy it from Bandcamp.