Last week when we dropped a gnarly Rusted Rhythms mix from Melbourne’s Kodiak Kid, we told you he’ll be releasing his debut EP Drifting Status on May 10. Today the second single from that long-awaited release is here - “Gangster Cinematic” featuring the veteran producer and controllerism adept Mad Zach. This eerie six-minute ballad picks up from where Kodiak Kid’s first single “To the Point” left off. From the creeping bass lines to the tense string samples and the spacious mixdown, the sonic themes across both songs are similar, giving the listener a solid indication of what to expect from this EP.

“Gangster Cinematic” journeys farther than the first single into the outer reaches of the psyche. There’s more dissolve, more dissolution from the temporal. It cultivates a weightless, intergalactic feeling while still remaining tethered to the Earth through the organic sounds of the bass, rimshot, and occasional cello sample. A solid chunk of this vibe can be credited to Mad Zach. The grainy synth pad whirring in the background, ducking high and low from the side-chain compression on the soft drums, is surely his doing. That Kodiak Kid could link up with a wizard like Zach living across the world is a testament to the Australian’s strong connections in the global bass scene.

Although this track isn’t bass music at all. Even in Kodiak Kid’s downtempo mixes and sets, there are heaping helpings of bass, and many selections that emphasize sound design. Judging just by those mixes, which are all one has to go by, Kodiak Kid’s tempered, cinematic approach to production on both of his originals so far is surprising. It’s atypical electronic music, that’s for sure, even compared to his work as a selector. It sounds organic, more composed than produced. Perhaps he had more on his mind this whole time, thoughts crawling on inter-dimensional edges which are now coming to the fore through this first release.

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