Quirke
Configuration OT
Dekmantel
For a hot minute there, it felt like Quirke was set to be dance music’s next UK golden child. The producer came up through the veritable AD 93 pipeline with a basket of haunted club memories and breakbeats—cue the inevitable Mark Fisher and Burial references—but after releasing an excellent LP in 2019 (and even scoring a vaunted Pitchfork profile), he went quiet. He now returns with his first new material since then, an overcast collection of club tunes for Dekmantel called Configuration OT.
The building blocks of his previous output are here, but he’s refined his sound. “Undetermined” has got that big-room-sad feel, but it’s more nimble and weirder than the usual Bicep-core fodder, particularly when he builds toward a twinkling synth solo in the song’s final minutes. “OT 3” starts with the usual fizz of night-bus synths and syncopated drums before pulling back the curtains and shifting into a precise, percussive workout, and on “Ten Times Over Crystal Fruit,” the record’s best track, Quirke offers up a sort of duet, pairing a lightning-fast lead line that has the trappings of ’90s IDM with a bassline that sounds like it’s been recorded in reverse. These are bangers, for sure, but they are also filled with wells of feeling.
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