[Meakusma]

New York’s Madteo makes heady, slow-motion house tracks, clearly influenced by hip-hop and especially dub in the way their elements sit together and find each other via echo. Timesmithing, his latest EP for Meakusma, keeps with this signature sound. Its five tracks keep a lethargic pace and drag the pervasive vocal samples down with them, the swampy results ranging from vertiginous to vaguely creepy.

“Miss Tery Flavor” sits in the latter category. The track samples dialogue from Confessions of a Dangerous Mind — the scene with the protagonist’s early-pubescent attempt at getting a blowjob: “You wanna lick it? It tastes like strawberry,” and so on. It’s sleazily cute the first time you hear it, but beyond that its chances lie in the listener’s ability to put up with the sexual conversation of 11-year-olds. The track’s humid, low-slung groove could have done with something a little more adult on top. Although “Bangin On The Ceiling” features Sensational, the piece contains no actual lines from the MC. Instead, he repeats the title amid drowsy synth tones and what sounds like live percussion. It’s pleasantly airy, but there isn’t much to hold on to as a result.

Madteo is much tighter on the B-side. “Use It, Lose It, Music” resembles Theo Parrish in an echo chamber; the percussion is slathered in varying amounts of reverb as a murky organ pattern repeats underneath. “Do the Wright Thing” references Do The Right Thing and unlike “Miss Tery Flavor,” the track adeptly captures the mood of its source. Its lumbering bass line, dulled, dissonant organ tones, and distant vocal echoes imply smoldering, head-spinning summer heat. “Falcao” submerges an insistent Latin rhythm underwater, with only shuffling percussive flourishes and warped Portuguese vocals occasionally rising above the surface. Although unassuming at first, it’s thoroughly hypnotic. Madteo is evidently at his best when he keeps things blurry.