Toby Tobias

Paradise Lost Toby Tobias

Londoner Toby Tobias has had a rather productive year so far and it's with great pleasure that Let's Play House can claim him as its newest roster member. The Paradise Lost EP finds the man doing what he's done best since coming out in the early aughts: dropping deep and frothy house with a steely underbelly. The title track begins with a muddy synth line upon which ambient, meandering melodies are layered, all led by a distant voice singing nonsense. Like a snake-charmer, he lures you in slowly and subtly until a thick, heavy bass pops out of nowhere and keeps you bobbing along until it fades away. Marcos Cabral's remix cuts to the chase: the Brooklyn-based producer quickly injects the song with a hefty dose of adrenaline, speeding up the feel with a snappier 4/4 snare while also removing most of the vocals to yield an overhauled version that sounds like a carved-out, ghostly re-rendering of the original. The flip kicks off with "Choc-Ice for 4"—a funkier affair that prominently features a fat disco-y bass line offset by cold, precise synth stabs and a keyboard riff that sounds like it might've been used in an easy listening song. The tribal vocals Tobias sprinkles into the jam give it an off-kilter weirdness that keeps it interesting. Tokyo Black Star finishes up the release with a helter-skelter and chaotic take on "Choc-Ice." Dissonant, disturbing, and druggy, it most definitely lives up to its name—if the Akiba in question were from Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and the song came on while Rick Deckard was roaming the misty, disorienting alleyways of Tokyo.