Tennis Pagan: EKO | 4ZZZ Brisbane 102.1FM

- Passion project and micro-label Spirit Level, founded by radio personality and producer Tim Shiel and Wally De Backer (aka Gotye), seems to pick its roster mostly via the curation instincts of Shiel and Shiel loves the producers and artists that are even more micro than his label. Tennis Pagan fits that bill to a tee.

With a mere thirty-four Facebook followers and a bio that seems to identify the mysterious beatmaker as the slightly battered looking and somewhat less-than-successful Carlton AFL coach Denis Pagan, our man behind the boards doesn’t appear to be letting on a whole lot. I’m not sure what Denis is up to right now, but I’m pretty sure he hasn’t created a little bedroom studio for the making of left-field beats. So, there’s little to go on but the music and on debut EP EKO that represents a selection of tantalising -if tiny- morsels.

Opener, Pli, at three minutes and twenty one seconds, is one of the more substantial offerings. It’s like a d’n’b cut, but played on the wrong pieces of percussion or maybe it’s just the lightest, most speeding slice of ambient d’n’b you’re likely to encounter this week; really there’s so little bass in it, but it’s actually quite fresh and appealing. The following sub-two-minute fragment, Heads, seems to confirm the initial impression of a fascination with oldschool beats. It begins with a very metallic sound somewhere between instrumental hip-hop and industrial before throwing in some proper jungle that’s very entertaining but over so quickly.

Dirge is a minute-long fannish copy of The Aphex Twin’s Windowlicker, which, well y’know, whatever. It’s followed by some more of those highly metallic beats, matched to a hazy, ambient background and soundbedding a rather bizarre conversation that appears to be centred around the Calliope on The Natchez. I looked it up on Youtube and discovered a river-barge (The Natchez) with a steam pipe organ (that’s a Calliope - now you know!) tootling away. The lady in the conversation appears convinced it’s quite … sexy? Ok.

The EP’s title cut finally gets us back into songs proper. Again, I don’t quite know how to describe it: meshing together cutesy beats with a synth harmony that sounds somewhere between a modem and a vacuum cleaner and finally paired with more of those extremely metallic strikes that Tennis Pagan is quite obsessed with. It’s actually a great track, brimming with energy and syncopation and life; I thoroughly recommend it.

Closer, Sunkened, slows everything down into a pleasantly easy-listening bit of piano adorned electro-groove; something Groove Armada might well approve of. It also recapitulates more of that conversation, nostalgically endorsing the Calliope again and even featuring a tiny little bit of its tootling as the track closes out. I’m not quite sure what the significance of it all is, but it binds the ending of the EP together in a sentimental embrace.

EKO is pretty light-on as an initial offering. It doesn’t offer much, but what it does give you is different and intriguing. I think it’s a no-brainer: that’s the point that Tim Shiel got on board. If you also have an ear for quite left-field beats, I think you’ll be in too. I don’t really mind if the Calliope doesn’t make it back for the next outing, but I’m definitely looking forward to some more of Tennis Pagan.

- Chris Cobcroft.
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