JV & PALF is the Sydney-based collaborative project of COREY FUREY as JV (who you might recognise from his other project as PLANTLIFE) and MAX PALFREY as Palf (who also records under ILJUSWIFMO). Earlier this year, the pair shared their debut EP, Wren, a collection of minimal, darkly atmospheric club music. And now they've also come through with a strictly Sydney remix EP that enlists the likes of CASSIUS SELECT, newcomer SPLITCH and SETWUN reviving his old LETABRUTHAKNOW moniker.
According to the duo, “the theme for this remix package was exploring Sydney’s diverse musical underground. We love this city and wanted to showcase three producers who have inspired us”. And the EP does just that, traversing the emergent club sounds of the city, from UK-rave inspired breakbeats to percussive, tribal re-workings, proving that there is life yet in Sydney’s underground.
New kid on the block Splitch is the most unfamiliar name here, but that doesn’t prevent him from dropping the EP’s most bracing - and radical - remix on his reinterpretation of the opening track, ‘JBNT’. After some buildup, the remix blows the original apart by bursting into a stomach-churning flurry of UK breakbeats and warped basslines that’s dizzying in its relentless energy and perfectly nostalgic in its ‘90s rave overtones. You know that Boiler Room video of two British ravers from the ‘90s being interviewed that comes up on your Facebook feed every now and then? Listening to this remix feels like how I imagine those guys felt.
Meanwhile, Cassius Select delivers a stuttering, shuffling remix of ‘Don’t Stop’, bringing the somewhat submerged beat of the original into fuller focus with chopped vocal samples and percussion that falls all over the mix. It constantly threatens to break through and reach a climax, but instead plateaus at a level of low, shuddering intensity.
Under his Letabruthaknow guise, Setwun dials up the tropical undertones felt in closing track ‘Gully’, taking the original from a dank, overheated underground carpark somewhere in Sydney’s Inner West to a humid equatorial rainforest, reworking the track with a choir of bird calls, rolling, tribal-influenced percussion and a gradually crescendo-ing build.
With their Wren EP, JV & Palf established themselves as names-to-watch in Sydney’s underground electronic scene. With the companion remix EP, they’ve proved themselves equally adept curators of the city’s sounds.
IMAGE: Supplied
Words by KYLE FENSOM
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