Sumgii flexes his production prowess on off-kilter EP ‘Oh Fish’

Reviews

★★★★☆

North West London beatmaker Sumgii has returned with his first EP release of 2023, the experimental outing Oh Fish. Arriving via his own imprint pewpewbaumbaum on both digital and blue 12″ vinyl formats, the project splices influences from UK hip-hop and bass music, comprising four punchy, club-oriented cuts.

Kicking things off, title track “Oh Fish” is a heady dubstep number that pairs a slinking bass lick with chugging rhythms, drum machine accents and woozy pads. Honed in on atmospherics, it’s an evocative track that carries a palpable unease; revels in it, even. “Swump Ay”, which follows, seems to inventively turn UK funky and rave music motifs on their head as tribal drums collide with frantic claps, vocal bursts and meandering, vibrato-tinged melodies, culminating in five minutes of chaotic good.

Continuing to showcase the veteran producer’s penchant for eccentricity, “Mountain High” directly references elements of ambient music, purple dubstep, grime and leftfield bass, with throbbing chords and swooping, surreal synths leading into pummelling passages optimised for MCs. Sumgii signs out on “Disko Tekkers”, a woozy, Rhodes-infused fever dream of a house track, which utilises the same sample as Loefah’s timeless DEEP MEDi single “Disco Rekah”, recontextualising it in totally new ways.

Listen below, or head to Bandcamp to secure your copy on wax. Find Sumgii on Twitter and Instagram.

Editor of Richesse, Luke Ballance entered the world of music journalism unconventionally after a childhood passion for crowd-sourced information on music snowballed into a de facto role writing articles and managing UK artist relations at Genius. Expanding into more print and online titles in the following years including Clash, The Line of Best Fit, DMY, Gigwise and Link Up TV, the London-based writer has interviewed the likes of Madison Beer, Krept & Konan, Becky Hill, Bru-C and Nilüfer Yanya, and has penned copy for industry heavyweights including Deezer, Amazon Music and Universal. When he's not writing self-indulgent biographies in the third person, Luke can also be found writing freelance for other magazines, championing grime through his independent label Rosebank, or making rare appearances as a singer and guitarist.