Last year as clubs and venues around the world slowly began the process of crawling out from under the weight of lockdown, So U Know surged to the fore as the definitive track leading ravers back into the light. One of two original tracks created by UK duo Overmono for their anticipated fabric presents mix and compilation, the old school UKG banger burned with a nostalgia that would prove vital to fuelling the revival of the scene. Significantly it was a welcome shift by Overmono away from the minimal common time techno of Everything U Need back toward their genre bending breaks and bass roots. On Cash Romantic, their first full EP since Everything U Need, this shift reveals itself as a continuous course correction rather than a once-off detour.
With Cash Romantic, Overmono seem to be reconciling the stylistic dichotomy between their UKG instincts and melodic techno experiments in a way that’s significantly neater than before. While their style has always been hybridised, it’s in crossing over signatures from their various phases that has never quite been commonplace for them, never quite establishing a sound for Overmono that is entirely their own. On Cash Romantic, they’re coming closer than ever before to establishing that sound. Gunk for instance takes a signature Overmono pitched vocal loop and throws it against a lo-fi house beat and a Seinfeld-esque arpeggio. It’s surprisingly wistful, more robust in feeling than the iciness of So U Know or Diamond Cut. It’s a shift in tone that’s palpable across the EP. Overmono’s music has never been stoic per-se, but Cash Romantic reveals a different kind of emotion from the duo that’s less reserved and more, well, romantic. Phosycon is both hopeful and melancholic, walking the line between euphoria and sadness that makes for stirring dance music. The analog breakbeat percussion on the title track is left to race along with few electronic manipulations, just a few glowing synth chords that ebb hazily in the background. It’s skeletal drum’n’bass, more the former than the latter and a suggestion toward Overmono’s experiments coming ever closer to the Burial formula.
Download and stream Cash Romantic here
Cash Romantic most closely resembles their work across the Arla EPs, closer in tone to the shimmery romanticism yet overt strangeness of tracks like Harp Open or Lockner Union. Gfortune, in its minimalism, recalls the former. It’s nothing more than a metallic bass modulation with pads that harmonise with its peaks and valleys. A looped and contorted vocal stretches across its soundscape, while trap hi-hats flutter every few moments. Bone Mics is a standout, a kind of UKG-acid hybrid that’s both indistinct yet familiar. Spectral vocal samples and loops dance below a chorus of static and machine noises, as a pointillist breakbeat simmers beneath. It’s a track that sits in between so many of its reference points, that it establishes its own space altogether.
Cash Romantic is more polish than spit, possibly some of their tidiest work to date. Though a sort of messiness is inherent to Overmono’s appeal, it’s easy to see why Cash Romantic exists. It’s their most ardent expedition toward establishing a definitive sonic identity, a neat traversing of their influences and interests that feels considered and hypothesised toward achieving an evolution to heights beyond their Song of the Summer status.
Listen to Bone Mics from Cash Romantic below.
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