The French production duo known as Nikitch & Kuna Maze made their debut on Cascade Records with the EP named Cake just about one year ago. Since that time, we have also gotten a solo EP from Kuna Maze, 2009. Now the two have gotten back together to expand their sound and make their debut on Tru Thoughts with Mush.

If Cake was Nikitch & Kuna Maze exploring and figuring out what their sound was, Mush sees them taking that next confident step, where they are both experimenting and firmly planting their feet down. Their home base appears to be a sort of progressive house – something that would have been called IDM back in the day, where the beat is uptempo and pulsing, and the two bring in elements of modal and free jazz and electronic music and mix it all together into this fun, challenging, and danceable music. The real standout track to me in this sense is “bruk,” which manages to play a little bit of manic rhythm with multiple percussion elements such as hand claps and snares against some really warm and gentle melodic elements such as electric piano and flute, which all builds to this fantastic breakdown in the middle of the song that gives you a chance to breath and take stock of where the song has been and what it’s building back to, then very slowly build everything back to energy of the beginning. It’s the type of attention to detail and the patience of putting together a good song structure that really highlight the growth in this EP. There are moments where they move in more of a downtempo direction, such as on “CBD,” but again, there is a layering of elements and good melodic development in such a way that really captures you attention and keeps you guessing and living in the moment with them.

Cake certainly showed a lot of promise from Nikitch & Kuna Maze, but it’s nice to know that we didn’t have to wait that long to stop talking about potential. With Mush, we can just focus on everything interesting they are doing right now, and then maybe turn an eye toward the future.