CYRIL HAHN FT SHY GIRLS PERFECT FORM

Wowee... Cyril Hahn has come a long way since I first wrote about him around this time last year. From basically unknown remixer and SoundCloud uploader to being bigged up by various people, such as Annie Mac (and also literally just a few minutes being played on BBC Radio 1 by Zane Lowe), touring and widespread good reviews and success, Mr Hahn is a regular success story. And an internet success story to boot, and who don't love an internet success story eh?

Anyway, this song marks his first official single, out on PMR Records - which has such tasty-sounding artists on its books as Dornik (whom I wrote about the other day) and Disclosure - and features singer Shy Girls on vocals.

To be honest, although it sounds different - more busy and bustling with different sounds and elements, plus original vocals - to his earlier things, like his now infamous remix of Destiny's Child tune 'Say My Name', the same heart is embedded in the core of the song. He plays with an almost majestic sense of nostalgia, giving an epic dreamlike quality to the sounds of our generation's younger years - 90s pop and R&B becomes near spiritual in the hands of Cyril Hahn.

The song is constructed slowly, built up with soft, mellow synth to an understated house beat, adding in occasional bass bounces as the beat itself fleshes out with a conservative clap and hi-hats. The dynamic of the song, and in all of his songs in fact, lies in dropping the sound ever further into deep rumbling ambience in sections over the song's duration. He allows the vocals from Shy Girls to breathe - itself beautifully smooth-toned - and allows it to make its own impact before coupling it with tidal synth, washes of thick layered chords that is almost like a spillage of gorgeously vivid paint.

Before you know it, there are shuddering synth arpeggios, ambient breezes and a ground-shaking bass all whipped up together in Cyril Hahn's masterful mixing bowl of sound - it's that kind of cookery where you kind of don't even need to taste the cake at the end, just eating the batter is enough: it's simply that tasty. Ermm... cooking analogy aside, it's a great song. Poppy as you like but with a really sophisticated edge that Cyril Hahn has been honing for a while now with his various remixes (Jessie Ware, Solange, Haim, etc.) - the vocals are awesome too, real smooth, could've been lifted right outta the past. But they're original, and you'll have that haunting "Perfect form" lyric chanting in your head for days.

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