Our favourite Minneapolis triumvirate skulks back to Duploc carrying ghetto blasters, over-sized cannons and 64-bit haunted houses. Welding Duploc’s second vinyl release together with bubble gel and taffy, the three musketeer’s first release of 2019 is a four-track EP that adds another three stonkers to their smörgåsbord of boomers, as well as a nostalgic chiller sampling The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’s Forest Temple.
Speaking of smörgåsbords, the troika’s selection of wubs is delectable. In one bite you’ll squidge through a sweet yog, a rare wuk and a trembling, descending buuuwuwuwuwu. Whilst their songs do achieve an unmistakeable signature, the circular-smooth edges around each distorted ripple grasp for the raw struggle of a less experienced Skream. Were this salmonella-inducing element less subjected to audio topiary, the clear-cut (yet finely tuned) sections of each song might bleed more colourfully. The EP further elucidates Duploc’s fervour for both the deep and the stinky. ‘Forest Temple’ avoids a law suit through an atmospheric Easter-egg hunt of heavily processed samples from Ocarina of Time. With Argo’s recent Artikal release, ‘Daredevil’, sampling a lone flute player from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, there’s never been a better time to bring Zelda-infused bassweight to dancefloors worldwide.
The EP’s heart-throb track is a close 10-count between the VIP’s. ‘Verify Me VIP’ contains a delectable downwards sloping jelly-earthquake that leads into the scream of an angry, over-heated CPU. ‘Yellow & Grey VIP’ might just take the biscuit though, as it does away with the dark, evil elements that many might find unwelcoming in dubstep and replaces them with a positive ragga bounce combined with an incredibly catchy wob line. The triune sound may have been proving their worth in weight on their first Duploc single back in 2018, but the crystal-clear clarity eye-dropped into Verify Me and Yellow & Grey show that they can always make fun more fun. And that’s just the thing, the brash, laid-back humour that characterizes each track and fuels the thicc 808’s pumping underneath is infectiously fun. So, if this release has left your head bopping for more, then I’m sure the Instagram pics of the triplex tag-team clad head-to-toe in Duploc gear (undies included?) means that there’s much more to come.
