It’s a very welcome return here to Andy Kent a.k.a Innereyefull, musician, dj, producer and sometime purveyor of dusty cinematic downtempo breaks. I say ‘sometime’ since the bud haze appears to have cleared somewhat for his brand spanking new Playground LP thus allowing the bpms to creep stealthily into the upper 90s to begin with, then with increasing swagger into the 120s and 130s for a b-boyish vibe. Steady on Andy – next thing you know you’ll be on a dnb tip! Ahh – here we go – the title track – a blissed out 85 bpm – oh wait – scratch that, it’s just doubled up to 170 bpm. Whatever is going on here?
It seems that our man’s recent-ish move from the ‘big smoke’ to Cornwall has freed him up to cast his net of inspiration wider than ever. There’s also a certain irony to be found in the fact that this LP appears to celebrate where he’s from i.e. London (with its gritty black and white pic of a kids’ urban play area on the cover and dnb and reggae sprinkled among the funkier breakbeats) as opposed to where he’s at. At least in terms of loaction. Where Mr Kent is ‘at’ musically these days is using fewer samples and predominantly live instrumentation, having surrounded himself with a large crew of musicians down Kernow way apparently from whom he has conjured most efficacious results. Craig Charles thinks so too since he recently playlisted b-boy banger Diggin Crates . Nice work…
(Out 30 August on Inner-I Records)