Jimmy Edgar

Native Detroiter Jimmy Edgar caps off a fruitful year with a release on his own imprint, Ultramajic Records. Whether as part of Jets with fellow knob-twiddler Travis Stewart (a.k.a. Machinedrum) or under his own guise, Edgar is producing some of the most forward-thinking bass music around. The real attraction on Mercurio is the human touch with which much of the EP is imbued, such as the titular title track, whose watery shimmer and vocal sample tics weave in and out of the mix like wind. As seen on the recent collaborative Jets EP, Edgar is the master of the sequencing domain, and his skills really shine here. His interest in the occult and the worlds of paganism and magik are well documented, and while it may be difficult to represent some of the more esoteric and unexplored reaches of the human psyche within the confines of dance music, Edgar does a fine job of pinning his influences to his (wizard's) sleeve on Mercurio, delivering a woozy set of psychedelic, pounding house music.