Reid Speed and Sola – Serpent Charmer/War Cry (Play Me Records)

Play Me Records was founded in 2009 by Reid Speed and Alexander Rosson, and describes itself as broken beats, good vibes and heavy drops. Head honcho Reid Speed teams up with Manchester based Sola. Lets check out this 2 track beauty below.

Serpent Charmer
This tune is very aptly named The vibe is set immediately with some lovely oriental leads and tabla percussion dripped in delay. We have some building fx;s and some tightly stretched rolling drums. The tune breaks down into a nice build before we drop into a reese heavy melody and some tasty bass replies. Gradually it builds and adds some cool off key basses, arpegios and percussion to support the drums. The mid section comes in fairly quickly and this time goes into a much larger build into the next drop. This drop has a really straight drum pattern and some interesting ideas. It kind of feels like it’s constantly building up to something more. We go back into a tabla driven section and this takes us to the end quite nicely. It’s a well produced track with some fantastic original sounds and ideas. I would probably say it would have been nice to have an extra 16 or 2 in both sections of the tune to experiment and add a bit more content. I think some more of the oriental lead with some variation would have added just a bit extra, however 3 minutes is a pretty standard song length and the tune is really polished. Reid Speed and Sola have really came up trumps and all in all, it’s a tune that will mix in well with other tracks, has some nice genuine ideas and a great vibe. I wouldn’t say it’s particularly heavy or light, it’s somewhere in between and given a lot of tunes are quite polarised, as in extreme chill or extreme filth it’s quite nice to hear something a bit more central which I love. Serpent Charmer is a great tune and heavily recommended.

War Cry
This starts with some really foreboding arpegios and movie-esque pads and synth work which really build a fantastic vibe. When the bass drops in it is pretty squelchy and wet and as we hit the drop it begins to snarl and evolve really nicely. The drums are pretty old school and cut through nicely. I especially like the snare sound. The bass moves into some nice stacatto patterns before revolving into the squelchy monster from the drop. We move expertly into the mid break which again brings us into a mystical and well produced set of themes and ideas. Our old friend the squelch monster comes back driving and snarling into the 2nd drop. The fx sounds work really well with all the drum work and there’s lots of cool original dnb/jungle breaks underneath and a cool little vocal appearing every now and then. The tune is solid and the production is nice with everything taking a nice place in this balanced mix. Possibly wanted a bit more towards the end with another section but you can always just listen again on the reload! Similar to Serpent Charmer it’s not the heaviest tune in the billing but certainly a bit filthier in the bass department. The production is super clean and pops nicely. It has a huge intro and mid section and lots of musicality and a really meaty filling in between.

Overall both tunes are nicely themed, with a lot of cool production, balanced mixes and lots of personality. I feel War Cry is my favourite track and a bit more complete. There is lots of vibes created and both tunes certainly possess some sort of mystical feel which I really like. They are not only good listeners but important tunes to have on the usb for a mix.

You can listen to them here