Despite arriving just a few months before the full-length
Leave Luck to Heaven, the simultaneously released
EP 1 and
EP 2 did not forecast what was to come from
Matthew Dear;
Leave Luck to Heaven would prove to be more geared toward a home listening experience, while the vinyl-only EPs cater more explicitly to the club.
EP 1 is the better of the two, if only by a minute margin. This really boils down to the presence of "Laguna Madre," one of
Dear's most distinct and deranged productions to date, with a filtered, scythe-like effect sweeping throughout. Subtract that element and a wonderfully loopy track would still remain, bursting with darkly animated squeaks over a bassline that baffles as much as one of
Isolée's best. The three tracks that follow are noteworthy in their own right, taking the sound of Perlon -- the label where
Dear releases his
Jabberjaw material -- into steely industrial territories. The 30-second "Claudia," while something of a tacked-on afterthought, is another point of interest, sounding like something of an homage to labelmate
Dabrye.