The Singles Jukebox

Less noisy than the three foxes your editor ran into on the way home yesterday…

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[7.00]

Alfred Soto: The Manchester deejay Murlo mixes the burps and Simon Says synths of garage with faint house undercurrents — “Downtown Uptown” is true to its title.
[7]

Iain Mew: The pairing of thumping dance and MC reminds me of Riton and Kah-lo’s “Rinse and Repeat”. This goes on much more of a journey, taking in some great synth bubble sounds and an infectiously enthusiastic vocal, but lacks the focus to quite bring the elements together to something more.
[6]

Will Adams: A wubbing square synth bass like this doesn’t deserve canned staccato strings like that.
[5]

Juana Giaimo: “Downtown Uptown” has a promise of excitement that is never fullfilled. 
[5]

Edward Okulicz: This is a slick and frenetic banger if ever there were one. The garage overpowers me, while the undertones of house warm the bones.
[9]

Cassy Gress: I think any song that makes me immediately start bopping my head when I hear it should get no less than a [5]. It threw me off a little for those 30 seconds starting at around 0:40 where there is literally nothing on the downbeat other than the synth viola, and it never does anything overly expansive, but if it’s that relentless of a head bopper, it doesn’t really need to sound expansive, does it? By the point it gets to the bloopy arpeggiation, well.
[8]

Will Rivitz: The first SoundCloud tag for “Downtown Uptown” is “Fruity,” which captures the spirit of the song pretty accurately. Murlo’s trademark technicolor bass darts around Fox’s expert MCing, 16-bit synth squelches and bouncy snares adding extra bursts of flavor. Likely song of the summer, inasmuch as the summer represents steaming asphalt and sweltering afternoons on the street. Highly recommended.
[9]