Joker feat. Silas - Here Come The Lights / My Trance Girl [stream]

Bristol producer Joker has a lot resting on his young shoulders. With the release of tracks like Digidesign on Hyperdub in early 2009, he was hailed as one of the biggest names in underground electronic music, and his taut, dense, instrumental grime went a long way in reshaping what it meant to sound ‘futuristic’. With the announcement of his signing to 4AD earlier this year, anticipation has been high for his forthcoming debut album ‘The Vision’. Here Come The Lights is the second single to be released and it’s an ambitious, big-gun effort.

There’s a punchy vocal (from Silas Bjerregaard of Danish band Turboweekend), a haunting panpipe intro, twisted synth lines and plenty of bass. With Silas’s voice dominating the song, the result is unapologetically 90s boy band-ish. While fans of his early work will no doubt plump for the non-vocal version (he says in the comments on YouTube that an instrumental will be available to buy), there’s something deliciously last-track-of-the-night about this version (listen below) that I love. The B-side to it is altogether more purple wave, however: a revamped version of his 2009 tune My Trance Girl, a radio rip of which is also streamable below.

4AD will release ‘The Vision’ on 7th November 2011. Ahead of that, Here Come The Lights/My Trance Girl will be available on 12” and download on 12th September