- Denis Sulta says his latest record is "about a man separated from his group of travellers, lost in a mystical rainforest. He finds himself at the top of a gigantic tree that stands tall as the sky, right at the crest of a majestic waterfall. He realises there is no way that he will ever be able to express what he experienced that day. His journey is his own, and always will be."
If I were this story's protagonist, expressing myself wouldn't be the worry—instead, I'd be wondering how I'd ended up at the top of an enormous tree. It's a pertinent question for Sulta, who debuted on RA's top 100 at number 26 last year, just above Laurent Garnier, Richie Hawtin and Sven Väth. When he spoke to Carlos Hawthorn for a Breaking Through feature in January, the young Glaswegian described the creative paraylsis that follows a hit. Back then he was struggling to banish the spectre of the 2015 Numbers smash "It's Only Real." This time he's following up the monstrously huge Nein Fortiate EP. Our World (With A Boy On Its Shoulders), which features two versions of the same track, sounds uncannily like that EP's A-side. The twirling synth melody is extremely similar (it's even in the same key), as are the solid thumping drums and bassline working as euphoric counterweight.
OK, there are some new embellishments. There's an extra lick of speed, sprightly piano chords, rainforest field recordings (remember the story) and, on the A-side, a crackly sample of what sounds like African folkloric singing. But the result is the same: a distinctive and deftly produced big-room banger, in the tearjerking post-Innervisions sense of the term. You can't blame Sulta for clinging hard to that treetop, but it's not very interesting to watch.
TracklistA Our World (With A Boy On Its Shoulders)
B Aur Wurld