EP Review: Baby Let Me Finish - Bwana

Having previously signed tracks to Diplo's Mad Decent this is Bwana's debut release for Somethinksounds. And it's a pretty good start for the 21 year old Canadian-born kid from Leeds.

'Baby Let Me Finish' is a tight but soulful dub-step track built around a pitched up female vocal. The style feels a little like the sunny tracks of Joy Orbison meets the vocals of Burial. This is a spacious track - the filtered bass and treble heavy claps create a lot of ambience but the cut-up vocal sound adds complexity and wraps it up into a soulful package.

Three additional mixes make up the release including one masquerading as an original track in 'Nami Swan'. This transforms it into a Euro deep house with a melancholic bassline and early nineties synthetic drums. It's a brilliant demonstration of Bwana's versatility.

The other remixes remain truer to the original. The 14th Remix retains much of the original but gives it a less stuttering feel - it is just a step closer to rolling drum 'n' bass territory and here the vocal is more natural with less tweaking.

The final mix - the Black Orange Juice remix - is slower, with a bouncing bass line. It plays with layers of the vocal, adding different pitches and a new mail counterpart. It is more commercial than the others but sadly lacks a lot of the thrill of the original.

Overall Baby Let Me Finish is a quality release. Given his apparent versatility it will be interesting to see what direction Bwana evolves his sound into.

Baby Let Me Finish is released on 30 July through Somethinksounds.