Andrew Field-Pickering is a guy with a lot on his plate. Aside from co-running the fantastic Future Times label, penning one of The Fader’s better columns, and DJing and releasing WBMX-style boogie as half of Beautiful Swimmers, Field-Pickering has been releasing a variety of beat experiments as Maxmillion Dunbar. Like A Made Up Sound’s “Shortcuts” reimagined in tree-lined summertime suburbia by a hammock-dwelling weedhead, the Maxmillion Dunbar material is unpredictable in structure, working in a dreamy realm between wonky hip-hop and slow house. Girls Dream, his latest 12″, pairs the humid titular jam with bonus beats and an ambient piece, dealing thriftily with the space afforded by the format.
The title track is the sort of deceptively simple arrangement Mark E would come up with — slowly stepping 4/4 laced with a reverbed-out, slightly off-kilter soul sample, the hook entirely in the creeping, superlow bass line. The formula is rinsed and repeated, with a few EQ tweaks. Field-Pickering is an avowed user of the term “UUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHH,” and it’s admittedly difficult to think of a better descriptor for this one: “Girls Dream” is gritty funk that hits you right in the gut, and ought to be screwing up a few faces in the future. The two remaining tracks are not so anthemic. “Bells Dream Dub Bonus,” as its title suggests, is a bell-infused rhythm track made up of leftovers from the title track. It’s little more than a solid tool and ably preserves the feel of “Girls Dream.” Meanwhile, “Ambient Lemon & Lime” is a short piece of hissing, dubbed-out ambience; a wordless vocoder echoes away next to some meditative keys. It’s a bit of an unstructured afterthought, but again, Maxmillion Dunbar is a sketchy project, and it makes sense to fill out the record with a couple of experiments. As audacious a move as it may be, Field-Pickering could easily have gotten away with releasing “Girls Dream” by itself, such is its considerable flair.
GREAT stuff.