Oshiete (EP)

Sibu kicks out another two-track digital EP every month or two, and they’re always worth paying attention to. The Athens-based producer has a peerless sense of texture, timbre and atmosphere, drawing on global sounds from east, west and south – though the references manifest as phantasmal mementos, rather than cheap, flashy souvenirs from jaunts abroad. Let’s call it precision uncertainty.

Earlier releases, like the cumbia-via-Cairo of “Jasmin”, often struck a nice balance of catchiness and eeriness (and the extensive Radical Grid remix series is a bounty of psychedelic dancefloor gold). Sibu’s recent EPs have leaned more decisively toward the murky and mysterious, and his latest continues that arc.

The title track of Oshiete is an ominous, almost funereal creeper – a gathering of dark clouds that hold off breaking into a full downpour. It’s really just a patient buildup to the second track, “Miftah”, an arid phantom processional adorned with goblet drum and ghostly bird calls, deftly blurring the distinction between welcome mat and warning sign.