Alaska (2) / Paradox - Rare Earth / I Get A Kick Back

This is an absolutely perfect 12" from Dev Paradox.

On the Rare Earth side Dev dons his deeper Alaska pseudonym for a beautiful cosmic shuffler. Structurally this is the more straightforward and DJ friendly of the two tracks so there's more room to focus on the beauty of the textures and the ethereal key lead. Despite the subtlety you can tell full effort went into the drums. The programming of the fills is characteristically top notch for the master of sampled funk breaks.

I Get a Kick Back is the more unorthodox half of the 12" with Paradox taking this side to the darker and dirtier side of funk. The Kick Back break has so much swing on the tail of the bars that it comes off as sounding almost experimental when compared with most contemporary drum and bass. Therein is the beauty, though. Take it out of the context of drum and bass and you have a something that still stands firmly on its own. It's a brilliant homage to the classic funk it was sampled from.