"Psycho Animus"

Washington, D.C.'s 1432 R label launched earlier this year with a record by an Ethopian artist, Mikael Seifu, that fused techno and ambient tropes with percussion and vocals from his native country. He's back on the label's second release with "Tuff Ruff", an even more seamless merger of Ethiopian elements with Western club rhythms. But the record's flipside suggests that 1432 R isn't turning a blind eye to what's going on in the label's own backyard. "Psycho Animus" is the work of a Virginia-born, D.C.-based producer named Dawit Eklund, and while it's his debut, it sure doesn't sound like it.

The song's hollow bass synth and glowing organ tones recall classic deep house productions from Larry Heard and Pal Joey, while the hardscrabble drum machines and rubbery, twanging effects suggest the slightly haywire aesthetics of D.C.'s Future Times crew. It's a simple track, in many ways, revolving around a single pedal tone, but there's a wealth of detail in the margins, so much that it becomes hard to parse—jazzy hi-hats, flourishes of accordion, white-noise streaks of uncertain provenance. It's neither upbeat nor downcast, exactly, and much of its appeal lies in that state of ambivalence.