His mates know him as Ned East – the people know him as Kilter.In between releasing his sophomore EPShades, remixing tracks for his peers and getting on the road, this industry youngster has reached maturity, carving a prominent sliver in today’s music scene.

From the first synth wash-up, ‘They Say’ exudes a series of tropical rhythmic textures, topped with slightly distorted vocal samples that compete against drum machine clicks and rattles behind them. Trailing a promising start, ‘When You Walked In’ oozes a constant drip of looped, percussion-laden beats. The chopped glitch vocals are persistent, managing to communicate an interpretable story without much use of lyrics.

Subsequent hip-hop-slanted tracks ‘Alive Again’, ‘Coward’ and ‘All You Want’ feature collaborations with Citizen Kay, Ngaiire and Ev Jones respectively; each track standing distinctively separate yet still marrying together nicely.

‘Melt’ brings things to a close, lightened with a myriad of pitter-patter drum beats that allow room for a build of sweeping synth to cut through.

Kilter is shaping up as one of the best Australian producers around – it’s safe to say this Sydneysider is here to stay.

4/5.

ShadesEPis out now through etcetc.

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