Time Is Hardcore
High Contrast ft. Kae Tempest and Anita Blay
12th August 2020 (single), 13th November 2020 (LP)🇬🇧 🏴
High Contrast (aka Lincoln Barrett) is a Welsh electronic music producer and DJ.
For his 2020 track Time is Hardcore, he teams up with Kae Tempest, who contributes spoken word and rap - and by singer Anita Blay (formerly CocknBullKid) who provides the chorus vocal.
The result is one of the highlights of 2020 for me. It starts off with Tempest’s rap thing over a beat that is soon accompanied by synth snippets from Gosh by Jamie XX. This synth sample continues over most of the song, including a chorus sung by Bray.
As the song progresses, Tempest ups their word rate, and that’s really what makes the song build, as much as anything.
There’s not really a lot to say here - good beats, great spoken and sung vocals, and that wonderful synth sound from Gosh. In my top two of 2020, along with Idoru by Grimes.
Time Is Hardcore was released as a single in September 2020, and appeared on the Notes From the Underground LP two months later.
