San Francisco producer Devonwho caught a little shine last year with a pair of mixtapes that emphasized his ear for futuristic soundscapes owing equally to the boogie-funk pantheon. Our friends at XLR8R kept an eye on the man’s Perfect Strangers sets — which followed work on the All City imprint associated with Los Angeles’ beat scene — and now those collections are receiving a proper release.
The new 13-track Perfect Strangers will compile the best of volumes one and two, plus unreleased material, and is coming to cassette and digital download August 13 courtesy of Portland’s buzzing Dropping Gems label (the very same responsible for launching R&Bist Natasha Kmeto). Below you can hear “reds/blues,” a track that contains an aural duality as well. We begin with trapped hi-hats and kicks accompanied by spaced-out sequences. But once that bona fide head-bobber establishes itself, the song shifts: A jazz-sourced drum kit starts to sputter and some nastily funked synth-bass reigns supreme.
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Devonwho, Perfect Strangers track list:
1. “fronteras”
2. “taurus/shorty”
3. “ghost”
4. “slices”
5. “wilts”
6. “reds/blues”
7. “makinglists”
8. “pretendingtowalkslow” (feat. Zeroh)
9. “radarrr”
10. “cabbages” (feat. Swarvy)
11. “ghostpt2”
12. “shine” (feat. Teeko)
13. “gardeninginbed”
