Since producer Dylan Brady released his last solo effort, the underrated ‘Peace & Love’, in 2018, his career has shifted significantly. In the last seven years, he’s written and produced for the likes of Charli XCX and FKA Twigs, he reunited with the group Cake Pop for a full-length album, he founded Dog Show Records, and, of course, has become known as one half of the hyperpop outfit 100 Gecs alongside Laura Les.
After several years of success working with others (and discourse over Gecs’ presence in popular music), Brady has finally returned to release the ‘Needle Guy’ EP, a slight pivot into Techno and House music mixed with Brady’s cheeky hyperpop sensibilities.
Opener ‘Throat Song’ is a minimal affair, following along with a simple house beat accompanied by a gross (positive) synth line that imitates a constant vocal creaking. It’s maybe a bit too repetitive, but that simple beat does lodge itself in your brain after the first minute or so.
That track transitions directly into ‘Stay High’, which might be closer to what some may expect from Brady. We get big EDM synths reminiscent of the late 2000s or early 2010s, a louder and more percussive beat, and Brady even gets on the mic to sing a few lines in the dejected, low register way you can hear across his other work. It’s a bouncy tune that works as an opening for fans of Brady’s work who maybe weren’t totally on board with his shift into Techno music.
Next comes ‘Ashley’, which features Dutch DJ and Producer Afrojack. Along with his previous work with Skrillex, it seems that Brady is dedicated to working with some of the biggest names in dance music despite the ironic and trolling persona he often gives off. ‘Ashley’ is, essentially, just an early-mid 2010s EDM banger. It floats between driving beats with wailing synths and a big festival, hands-in-the-air style middle section. It sort of feels like a mesh of the previous two tracks, taking their best moments and smashing them together into one knocking track.
The closing track is ‘Needle Guy’, the lead single and namesake of the EP, and it’s probably the most involved of the four songs here. Its underlying beat is energetic and quick; the voice-like sound from ‘Throat Song’ is brought back, but it now repeats garbled nonsense that sounds like those old “yanny or laurel” videos. If ‘Stay High’ was the closest that the EP came to his previous sound, ‘Needle Guy’ is the closest that it comes to that ironic attitude mentioned previously. It’s the highlight of the project as an encapsulation of the image that Brady has been projecting of himself for the better part of a decade at this point.
While the ‘Needle Guy’ EP might not be a huge left turn for Dylan Brady, it’s different enough from his earlier solo output that it does feel like something of a new direction for him. Whatever’s next for Brady, be it more solo work, a new Gecs album, or something else entirely, it’ll be interesting to see him plant his feet even more firmly into this sound and meld it with other genres.
Alongside the EP, Brady released a half-hour-long DJ mix containing tracks from the EP on YouTube, filmed inside a piñata store. Because of course it was.