Electronica duo Cape Grace are Dubliners Marc Scully and Eric English. Practically new-borns, the pair recently released their first and self-titled EP online, and it’s a trip.

First track You’ll See opens with the tunnel trope, sounding like we’re falling down a portal to some futuristic dystopia that hasn’t quite mastered its elevator music. It’s hectic, schizophrenic, and a little bit unsettling. As panic attacks like these often go, all the despair builds up to nothing. The come down doesn’t nearly have as big an impact when it’s just cut from nothing and is over before it feels like it has begun.

HClarke‘s is another attempt to spin you around just to laugh at you when you walk away afterwards. When its hypnotising wind-chime opening retires, it’s utter doom. We’re talking, the kind of thing that would batter down your trip with a sledgehammer and have you writhing in the corner begging for mercy from whatever nightmarish hallucination you were having this time. It’s good though, atmospheric enough, and when the impending horror is stopped in its tracks, it kicks off to something a bit more upbeat thanks to the illusive vocals. Think Justice, particularly pissed off and looking for actual justice.

Basically, the whole thing just wants to drive you fucking crazy, and seriously errs on the edge of success. The circumstance of listening is paramount and would presumably be right at home in the basement dwellings of the Twisted Pepper. The droplet beats, distant synths, and low-fi crackle of Fluks sound like they’re reaching you through the filter of a tunnel.

For ambient, it’s adventurous, which certainly can’t go unappreciated. 2MV is the track that really shines though. What’s otherwise an EP of solid but not particularly mind blowing electronica, the stuff that will play in the background and you won’t beg for it to be turned off, 2MV is the kind you’d ask the DJ to write down for you. The ditzy analogue gives way to a sort of an African choir before those dry sandpaper beats kick in that just threaten to completely wear you down.

‘Cape Grace’ sounds like a short excerpt of a live DJ mix you’d listen to for a not-so-popular club night. It whets the appetite but doesn’t quite satisfy. You’ll be needing the full club experience to fill it for you, and whatever pharmaceuticals may enhance that.