[Hum + Buzz]

Australian producer Dro Carey’s musical reputation has been in the ascendancy over the past year, and his cross-genre productions have gained modest rotation on left-leaning dance floors. Add to this a release on the ultra-picky Trilogy Tapes imprint, and you have all the signs of a cult artist in the making. Candy Red/Hungry Horse, his first release on Hum + Buzz, however, teeters on the edge of incoherence. “Candy Red” opens with a haphazard soul sample cutting literally in and out of an aquatic pad sequence. After a scant minute, abrupt old school rave stabs join the mix before switching to a tremulous a cappella over what sounds like a reversed disco loop, all underpinned by swampy bass notes. If that sounds wrong to read, it sounds wrong to hear as well. The problem is that Carey’s sampled building blocks feel stand-alone — disparate elements that remain unassimilated into a cohesive musical entity. Clocking in at a long seven minutes, the track is at best bewildering and at worst irritating.

“Hungry Horse” is easier on the ears, benefiting from a satisfyingly functional arrangement and crunchy mix down. It sounds as if Carey has been paying close attention to Pearson Sound, Machinedrum and Addison Groove, and the familiar sonic signatures of bass music 2011 are all present and correct. Stuttering 808 samples, cut and spliced vocal snippets, rounded kicks and hypnotic pads are rendered with panache, granted, but an original identity does not come through in the track. Candy Red/Hungry Horse makes clear that Dro Carey has ideas and engineering talent. But what remains to be seen is whether he can find a space of his own in the increasingly crowded bass music environment.