Premiere: Strict Face channels seductive R&B on ‘Cherryhugs’

Adelaide native Strict Face has continually been nudging electronic music in fresh directions. Over the last half decade he’s dropped zero-gravity grime cuts on Gobstopper and Mumdance & Logos’s Different Circles, while more recently landing on Nina Las Vegas’s NLV Records with the colourful, dancehall-inflected ‘This Heat’.

Now on his most complete project to date that’s 100% him, nine-track mixtape ‘New Racer’ (released jointly by NLV and Local Action) finds Strict Face delivering the kind of earworm melodies that have made his music so instantly recognisable. ‘Cherryhugs’, which we’re premiering below, employs a romantic flavour with a plucked string intro that immediately recalls early ‘00s R&B/UK garage.

Of the track, Strict Face says: “‘Cherryhugs’ was the last track I finished for the mixtape – it came together just as I was putting together the preliminary tracklists with Nina [Las Vegas] and Tom [Lea] at the start of the year. There isn’t a particularly fancy backstory behind it, but the main melody was taken from an old idea I had lying around on my hard drive.”

Check it out below.

‘New Racer’ is released by Local Action/NLV Records on November 14th – pre-order the mixtape here.

Related: Listen to Strict Face’s Dummy Mix.