Slava: Tensed Beats

By Alif Omar Mahfix • 02 Aug 2013 in Music

Thirsty for JUICE content? Quench your cravings on our Instagram, TikTok and WhatsApp

Born in Moscow, brought up in Chicago, and now based in Brooklyn, Slava is a producer who is often time associated with the jokey seapunk and unintentionally serious witch house movements. There’s more to him than that though, it’s just so happens that he had releases on labels associated with the 2 genres. Slava himself prefers to be known simply as a house producer, as inaccurate as that might be in our opinion.

Nevertheless, Slava’s beats are more focused and thoughtful than your average bedroom musician. ‘Girl Like Me’, the standout track off his debut record Raw Solutions, is the most intense 4 minutes and a half dance track we heard in a while. Imbibing a dose of dread into the pitch-shifted vocal sample and two-note grind, the song creeps into your soul to complete unease.

It doesn’t help that the official music video of the track is a slow burn meditation on paedophilia, female sexuality, and prepubescent innocence. ‘Girl Like Me’ has achieved the impossible in being a difficult track to extricate from your psyche despite being wordless (disregarding the vocal sample), we’re still haunted by it even now.