[Idle Hands]

Bristol producer Kowton originally worked in dubstep, and while recent efforts have seen him producing at slow house tempos, his material still tends to bear traces of his roots. Such is the case with She Don’t Jack/Drunk On Sunday, his second 12″ for Idle Hands. Its two tracks sound like house by-way-of dubstep purism, mixing druggy, shuffling rhythms with calculatedly subtle, bare-bones composition.

“She Don’t Jack,” fittingly, doesn’t exactly jack. Its percussive elements rigidly totter up front in the mix, friskily mingling with one another. In spite of this, the track feels quite bleak, as the producer places this rhythmic interplay atop a melodically empty backdrop of foreboding pads, pitched-down toms, and a minimal but effective house bass line. On the flip, “Drunk On Sunday” works with a similar set of components, although it trades in the house bass line for huge, yawning subs. There is a palpable gap between its linchpin tom-and-woodblock pattern and the low-end, with only insubstantial pads floating in between. Given how empty these tracks are, it’s remarkable how much vivacity Kowton is able to squeeze from them. Both are certain to stand out in a mix, though their imposing moodiness may also be their Achilles’ heel, as they’re just as capable of engulfing their surroundings.