Pamplemousse by EKKAONE is the a-side of a two-track single that marks the end of a lengthy wait for new music from EKKAONE. For those familiar with their early work (I’m talking about Ground is Lava which is particularly well worth a listen), Pamplemousse by EKKAONE as a bold genre-jump that breaks unexpected new group whilst keeping one foot tip-toed on the edge of hip-hop tradition.
Before we really get into it, some admissions;
- There’s been a big gap between this track being released and me reviewing it. That’s because I’ve been busy and now that the weather outside is terrible, I can get back into reviewing music again. At least I’ve managed to write this before EKKAONE releases any more music
- I know EKKAONE personally. I’ve been thinking of adding some kind of !NEPOTISM ALERT! to by music review posts, but to be honest I wouldn’t post music that I didn’t have anything to say about, and if I’ve anything to say about it, then it shall be said.
So what is an EKKAONE?
EKKAONE is practically the blueprint for what I want my Soundcloud beat-maker to be; producing genuine originality with semi-traditional means and techniques. My only gripe with EKKAONE is frequency of output, which their SoundCloud account confirms, is too low.
EKKAONE: the blueprint for what I want Soundcloud beat-makers to be
The name ‘EKKA’ is a sort of phonetic spelling of the Sanskrit for the number one. Therefore EKKAONE is called ‘One One’, a bit like how a naan bread is basically called a ‘bread bread’. EKKAONE first took to SoundCloud with ‘Ground is Lava’, a beat-bending combo of bleeping synths and spliced soul music. It was pretty popular and collected a number of SoundCloud’s small square reactionaries who declared it both ‘dope’ and ‘ill’.
Pamplemousse by EKKAONE
So here we are in 2023 and EKKAONE sends me links for some brand new music. I open the link and find some… UK garage?! Once I’d stopped re-enacting the Blinking Guy gif, I could start listening.
And yes, Pamplemousse by EKKAONE is definitely UK garage, right from the off-beats-hi-hat intro to the 2-step stamp of authenticity. But EKKAONE is cleverer and has a trip-hop eyebrow raised at us, promising us just as much of the unexpected as the expected. Bleep synth partial melodies and thoroughly re-worked vocal samples pop out and keep you on your toes.
It’s like a secret blurted out that EKKAONE couldn’t stand to keep from us: this track is not going to sit politely and do what you think it ought to do. Particularly as the track moves into its middle section, there are plenty of intrusions to keep us guessing, toying with us like a cat that wants the mouse to live for a couple minutes more.
The hip-hop tech stack
EKKAONE ensures garage’s mid-fi quality is present here too, but for reasons of their own. EKKAONE’s biography reads more like a minimalist’s hip-hop tech stack: ‘MPC. Ableton.’ And it’s great to be able to say both ‘I believe you’ and ‘I’m glad you work this way’.
EKKAONE has always been most definitely hip-hop, and simultaneously most definitely being EKKAONE. We can still say this is EKKAONE, but now we’ve been lent components of garage, trip-hop and glitch to add to their CV. The result deserves to be in your playlist.
Pamplemousse by EKKAONE overall
We still don’t do ratings here but we do summarise. I was half hoping that Pamplemousse by EKKAONE would be a direct extension of Ground is Lava, but it’s not fair to expect a creator to remain unchanged after eight years.
What we have in Pamplemousse is an even greater experiment and a sigh of relief that the talented among us can produce a genre-led work that is unmistakably what it is, in this case garage, and also unmistakably their own: EKKAONE.
I breathe a sigh of relief that EKKAONE’s most important trait of all has stuck despite the hiatus: originality.