»Bracken Bed EP« by Malty Media

There’s nothing like a little collaboration, and in this case, it’s thanks to a couple of dangerous New Zealand natives - previous Monotonik releaser Aquaboogie and long-time electronic musician and Japanese resident Jet Jaguar.

They’ve kindly formed the special duo named Malty Media (I believe they played some shows together in Japan earlier this year), and this nostalgic 4-track EP plays off childhood memories of TV shows and advertising in their native land, with odd samples and strange angles throughout, almost like a much more surreal, Antipodean version of The Orb.

But what exactly do we have? Well, the title track, ‘Bracken Bed’, is all dub and squeak and extremely odd samples, before ‘Flakiest’ weaves in a little bit of subtle drum and bass across a chocolate commercial that echoes childhood thoughts. Then we have ‘Twiki’, which sneaks in a sci-fi robot beep or two, before we end out with the positively serene ‘Goodnight Kiwi (Beyond The Infinite Mix)’, possibly the Orb-iest of them all, with sped up and slowed down themes and chirp dub wonders galore.

(Watch out for a solo Jet Jaguar EP on Monotonik later this year, too, following his earlier LPs for Involve and Capital Recordings.)