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Music

Kornél Kovács Straight Up Smashes His First EP on Numbers, 'Radio Koko'

The Studio Barnhus co-founder's massive release is made for the magic hour.

If you make it to the end of a really good party, there's always a moment—usually as the dawn sizzles through the window cracks—when the loose-limbed stragglers simmering on the dancefloor burst into one last dying high. The drunks are passed out in their beds, the hornballs have paired up and split off, and the final hours of the morning belong to the freaks, heads and zombies reveling in a few protracted moments of total freedom. This is the space that I imagine Kornél Kovács's massive release Radio Koko would belong. It's the Stockholm-based DJ's debut on influential Glasgow label Numbers, and it fucking bangs.

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Kovács, who also co-runs the Studio Barnhus imprint, has an ear for synthesizing melancholy and sheer joy, which is why it's so perfect for that magical end-of-night zone. Radio Koko's four songs are marked by their refusal to stay in one line, swerving constantly into unexpected directions or lifting off to an entirely new plane. Club creeper "Gangsta" slinks along at 120 BPM over melancholy piano tinkles and a growling Reese bassline, while "Malon" starts out like an eerie acid track before breaking out into gleeful piano licks.

"My EP Radio Koko is inspired by and named after one of the imaginary radio stations broadcasting inside my head. I'm still shocked that the brilliant Numbers label agreed to lower their standards enough to release it," Kovács tells THUMP oh-so-humbly, giving a shoutout to "Marcus Price who laid the foundation of 'Malon,' and Matt Karmil who made sure these tracks sound good and loud enough for those make-believe FM waves."

Stream the entire EP above, and grab Radio Koko when it drops this week on Numbers.

Kornél Kovács is on Facebook // SoundCloud // Twitter

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