Known to a (temporarily) select few as Young Montana?, 20-year-old Jon Pritchard is a dreamweaving production shark from Coventry who, despite causing a substantial stir in the blogosphere earlier in the year, is still a few weeks away from having his mind-melting beats blow up the internet.
It takes just 45 minutes for ‘Young Montana Question Mark’ to become ‘Young Montana Full Stop’, through a twinkling collage of dusty soul samples, robotic honks and dubstep wobbles. Limerence kicks off with patient ambient whirs, before breaking into crisp pseudo-disco number ‘Sacre Cool’, and from there, there’s not a predictable break or lazy sample in sight.
‘Legwrap’ starts life as a brutal chiptune number, before morphing into a breezy slow jam. A high-attitude turn by Pennsylvania rapper Stainless Steele is perfectly placed on the dreamy ‘Suchbeats’, and closer ‘Connct’ binds Tchaikovsky’s ‘Swan Lake’ with a heavy house wallop.
What’s more, with a handful of hummable melodies, Young Montana?’s moody cross-genre fusion should thrill fans of major label lovelies James Blake and Jamie Woon as easily as followers of cult beatmakers like Flying Lotus and Madlib.
Pritchard’s stage name may carry an air of uncertainty, but his first LP is so deliciously polished, we’re never once left thinking ‘Huh?’ A thoroughly absorbing debut.