London Producer MM Returns With The Cathartic “9th Ritual”
“It’s about recovery. It’s me screaming,” says the artist formerly known as Miss Modular.
Though he's been busy running London's glossy underground label Her Records, MM—formerly Miss Modular—hasn't put his name to a solo release since 2013's razor-sharp single "Reflektor Pack." Two years later, after a period of soul-searching and a name change, he's back with an EP full of chaotic yet clean, UK funky-inflected productions. "For me, making art is often purely about staying sane," MM told The FADER via email. "This record came together after an extended period of creative stagnation and frustration, un-coincidentally coinciding with an extended period of self-doubt and dissatisfaction. It's about recovery. It's me screaming."
As for lead single "9th Ritual," premiering below, it's MM at his most fun and debauched, without losing Her Records' characteristically sinister edge. MM describes it literally as a club track for the circles of hell: "I broke my MIDI drum pad recording '9th Ritual.' There is a narrative of recovery over the course of the record, with hellish textures slowly making way for more transcendental ones. '9th Ritual' opens the EP and is all fear and anxiety. But this had to somehow translate into some kind of worthwhile club experience—it couldn't just be pure negative emotion. I wanted to take the instantly relatable rhythmic appeal of party oriented club styles (in this case bubbling and UK funky) and repackage them for performance by a drum orchestra of in the City of Dis. The darkest setting imaginable. It had to simultaneously invite and repel the dancefloor."
MM's self-titled debut EP is out October 18 via his own imprint Her Records. Catch him live B2B with Sudanim in Washington DC on October 9 and New York on October 10.