I've seen some genre intersections in my time, but gangsta ambient takes the biscuit. Baghdad born South Londoner VersA Beatz began as a grime producer, but like many has moved from that genre's hyped-up energy into the slower, more menacing electronic “trap beats” of hip hop. This in turn has overlapped with a current American style of melancholic leftfield hip hop sounds pioneered by Clams Casino (best known as producer to Lil B and current sensation A$AP Rocky) to produce, in this free album of instrumentals, a narcotic sound that feels as if gravity has been loosened and the imagination has been left to float free.
Where Clams Casino creates thick, even oppressive layers of drones and sampled voices, VersA's style is lighter, less melodramatic – but it still disconcerts. Things like the sea sounds, gentle chord washes and bleeps of album opener “6AM”, or the slick soul loops of “Amsterdam” and “Weekend”, could almost come from a generic, if high-class, chillout record. But put them alongside the metallic vocal sounds and concussion snares of “Evolve” and the blurred whirring of “Danny Ocean” and the whole album's atmosphere takes on an edge, a sense that danger lurks behind half-closed eyes.
Some tracks – “Dreams” and “St Tropez” in particular – have barely any drums at all for the most part, just sounds that undulate around one another like breaths. This kind of sound is often referred to as “filmic” but any movie soundtracked by these tracks would be pretty avant-garde: a dislocated set of washed out dream images, highly psychedelic and possibly pornographic. Which is not to say it's a difficult listen: it's not, it's compelling and occasionally even beautiful, but it'll leave you feeling pretty weird for a while.
Imogen will be available at 2pm today from http://versabeatz.com/
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