Surusinghe – ‘Brake Fluid’ EP review: every second hits as hard as a hurricane

25 October, 2023

Surusinghe

Melbourne-born, London-based DJ and producer Surusinghe emerged last year with debut EP ‘GOOD GIRLS // BAD GIRLS’, a grab-bag of dance music which drew from breakbeat, techno, bass and more for an eclectic and exciting introduction. Cutting her teeth with varied and lauded DJ sets across the world, the debut EP brought all this and more into her own productions and showed that experimentation and the cross-pollination of genres is in her DNA.

After the release of ‘Get Flutey’ earlier this year, which subtly pushed her sound forward, third effort ‘Brake Fluid’ sees the wheels in motion, the hinges greased, and Surusinghe going even harder towards pure dancefloor euphoria. Heavyweight opener ‘Bop’ centres around a squiggly melody, while mountainous bass crashes in and out at regular intervals. It’s a pummelling five minutes which belies its title – this is less a bop and more a total hammerblow.

“I’m first and foremost a clubgoer,” the NME 100 graduate – who also co-founded the Phenomena label – told Crack recently, and the variance of sounds and genres that float in and out of the EP make sense to have come from a student of the dancefloor. For nearly a decade before emerging with ‘GOOD GIRLS // BAD GIRLS’, she was working behind-the-scenes and soaking up sounds, ideas and energies to pour into her own music when it finally arrived.

That’s probably why every second of ‘Brake Fluid’ hits as hard as a hurricane. ‘Bet’ possesses gut-trembling bass while a loose, glitchy melody sits on top. ‘Boka’, meanwhile, feels like a relative of the hyper-pop scene and descended from the glitchy sonic world of SOPHIE. While rubbery bass hammers down throughout, all manner of fragmented sounds drift in and out of the frame.

It’s only closing track ‘Brain’ that feels like it has any space to breathe, with softer and more introspective beats giving respite after the thunderous, claustrophobic chaos of the rest of the EP. These are four songs that thrive in the darker, weirder corners of the dancefloor and cross boundaries with ease, carrying with them all the energy and hedonism of a perfect night out.