Mild Snake by Ivy Lab

The latest drop on Sneaker Social Club welcomes maverick beatsmiths Ivy Lab to the table with a potent cocktail of weapons-grade genre splicing that might surprise their existing followers.

Ivy Lab are Gove Kidao and Jon Fogel, respectively known in past days as Sabre and Stray with many a yarn to spin through the evolution of 21st Century electronic music in the UK. Having started out releasing D&B for the likes of Critical Music and Metalheadz, they joined forces and established their own 20/20 LDN platform in 2015, shaping their collaboration as Ivy Lab as an innovative force in hip-hop paced electronics.

Given their affinity for the many threads of soundsystem sonics, it figures they could twist their approach to club-ready output. Taking a purposeful break through 2023 to experiment freely in the studio, Kidao and Fogel noticed a few tracks manifesting which suggested they might be ready to put out an EP of tougher material. Seeking a kindred spirit who would do the music justice, they came to Sneaker Social Club with a batch of tracks ready to be whittled down to this razor-sharp EP. It was A&R’d the old-skool way, drawing out the best of the material they’d been cooking up in this holiday from their main body of work.

In the Akai’d crunch of the drums and the contorted breaks you can hear the lineage of jungle and D&B calling through the ages, while the staggered sample triggers bear the mark of footwork, but much their like prior output it’s the sound design and scene-setting which sets Ivy Lab apart. The end result is a grip of highly original but deeply rooted gear with more than enough hooks to shock a crowd out. Just marvel at the snarling acid flex barrelling through ‘Look Away’ or make your bodyflex to the pressure chamber of ’N.V.T 01’ and you’ll know exactly why they’re a natural fit on Sneaker Social Club.

Just brace yourself for the acutely angled, pitched up rap attack of ‘Kik Bak’, which sounds like nothing else around at the moment. Rugged, bass weight misfits wrangled from curious minds - even as a momentary diversion from their bread and butter, Ivy Lab’s tweaked take on club music lays waste to the competition