Art by Babybrusher
Mix & Master by Éric Najar
(c) Broyal

Ghost Realm

The neon-lit allure of Miami at night is an aesthetic hard-coded into frazzled eye sockets, whether you grew up enthralled by Tony Montana’s rise to power or fell into the ultra-violent fantasy of GTA. Something about the clamouring Florida heat drives people to excess, whether they’re players in a fiction or real-lifers living like movie stars. It’s a visceral aesthetic which enchants the world over — just one lurid notch in the bedpost of American cultural colonialism — and it shows up the sullied reality of ‘the dream’ even in the dimmest of lighting.

Brodinski didn’t have to soak up this pervasive inspiration vicariously through mixed media — bedded into Miami for a summer, he wrote The Sinkhole while contemplating the knotty character of this art deco wonderland once the sun goes down. The French producer has lived many lives in many places throughout his career, touching on chart-baiting electro and late 00s techno as a breakout superstar in the superclub era. Evil World saw him working with a heavyweight cast of rappers and more recently he’s linked up with the likes of Louisahhh and Low Jack to indulge a more gutter-dwelling flip on his upfront, flamboyant strain of haute-club-couture.

The Sinkhole evokes broad, palm-lined boulevards cast in the moon’s milky glow in every haunting pad — a seductive siren song calling out over Biscayne Bay. But threat is never far away, spelt out in every bludgeoning, bloated slap of bass, in every quivering string line cast in a minor chord, in the needlepoint detail slithering and shivering around the rhythm section. Without resorting to the lowest common denominator of speed, Brodinski finds his own way to spell out tension, directing a bewitching set piece that beguiles as it ensnares, promising you the depraved but oh-so elegant thrill ride your heart so deeply, ashamedly desires.

—Oli Warwick

Produced and mixed by @Brodinski
Mastered by Rashad Becker
Artwork by Ian Bruner and Babybrush

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