George FitzGerald - 'The Let Down/Weakness' (HTF012)

First Germany beat England, and the following day we see the debut release from George FitzGerald, life couldn't get much better. Today sees the release of young London producer's debut EP, 'The Let Down/Weakness', on the Hotflush Two label which specialises in finding the best in experimental 'dubstep' (e.g. Joy Orbison, Sigha, Mount Kimbie etc...). The so-called protege of Joy Orbison has been making noise on the scene for the last 6 months, and his first release is one I've been highly anticipating for a while now.

FitzGerald really came to attention when his best known track, 'Don't You?', after it was featured in Scuba's February released mix 'Sub:Stance'. FitzGerald's mix for the Take Flight Club back in December also caught a few listener's attention, with his intelligent track selection which creatively moved between dubstep, 2-step, techno and house gaining a few plaudits (Download the mix by clicking here). Many have been impressed by his early works, and it has drawn comparison's with the work of Joy Orbison, who has recently signed FitzGerald up to releases on his own Doldrums label.

FitzGerald fits perfectly into the post-dubstep group that has really started to develop in numbers after the landmark track 'Hyph Mngo'. His tracks have a trademark, soulful emotional numbers which contain a 2-step beat with heavy sub-bass as well as chopped up soulful vocal samples.

'The Let Down/Weakness' is a brilliant debut EP, one which firmly establishes FitzGerald's merging of 2-step, garage and techno, resulting in emotional music for the dancefloor. 'The Let Down' builds tentatively, with wonderfully repetitive percussive elements in sync with harmonious chopped up vocal samples. After around 1:30 the track starts to kick in, with an increased tempo and heavier sub-bass introduced, as well as the added layer of gorgeous diva vocal samples crying "no no no".

'Weakness' is equally as good, and follows a similar template to the first in slowly building up until the 1:300 mark, an approach which has been similarly adopted by the likes of Joy Orbison and James Blake. The track's deep driven sub-bass is complemented well by the warm percussive synths as well as the lovely sampled vocals which results in resonance of the spoken words "my weakness" throughout the track. You can listen to these tracks on FitzGerald's soundcloud page by clicking here.

This debut EP is a must listen for fans of Joy Orbison, Mount Kimbie, Instra:Mental and James Blake. On this evidence FitzGerlad is without doubt one of the greatest prospects on the experimental dubstep scene, and without doubt we'll be hearing many great releases from this man on both the Hotflush and Doldrums labels in the near future.