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Live Review: Delicate composition meets huge floor fillers on Nina Las Vegas's EP, 'Lucky Girl'

20 July 2018 | 8:03 am | Holly O'Neill

Blending organic with synthetic across a brilliant Aussie collaborations, Nina Las Vegas brings out the beating heart of her club tunes on her Lucky Girl EP

Bonafide Australian music legend and label head NINA LAS VEGAS needs no introduction by now. The Sydney powerhouse producer, along with releasing and developing artists on her own label NLV Records, has been working on her second EP Lucky Girl. After picking up production a few years ago and having released a string of forward thinking releases since, she's truly come into her own on this release, turning organic vocal sounds into choppy synth lines or fine tuned robotic melodies under auto tune. With this release, she's brought out the beating heart of her club tunes, collaborating with friends across delicate composition, future pop and banging floor fillers.

The title track and first single from the release is a future-pop ballad, showcasing Nina's musical training and clear grasp she has on her unique dance music perspective. Alongside the rest of the tracks on the EP, it's an elevated, cushioning entry into her world within the release and filled with sparkling melodies and Swick's scratchy percussion. Against the brighter energy of the rest of the tracks, the simmering synth work, heartfelt vocals and lower tempo feel even more grand and affecting.

'I Know How It Goes' sees Nina Las Vegas team up with VERA BLUE and ECCA VANDAL, turning their empowered lyricism into a baile funk-tinged club banger. Their contributions are layered with CHARLI XCX levels of auto tune, as the trio all have a go of the main refrain on a track that champions their own abilities in the industry. The airiness of the verses are a stark contrast to the banging chorus breakdowns featuring Nina's vocalisations chopped into a bum-ta-ta baile beat keeper. The track has an personal strength to it under its club accessibility, as Nina explains, "Although elements of the music scene can suck, you can just be tough and roll with it."

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Nina flexes her production muscles on 'Zigazig', an instrumental club tool building on the sparseness of nor-club and the choppiness of baile funk. Club rhythms are layered with baile drums, and bleeps of synths vanish so quickly they feel like even more percussive layers. Soothing strings flow beneath peppy drum patterns and warped vocal samples, bending the fills and ad libs of rapper MISS BLANKS into synth melodies.

Closing out the EP is a collab with young gun NINAJIRACHI. Where one Nina brings their similar love of tactile sampling to the other's thumping club sensibilities. You can hear both of their contributions across the track, and yet the two artists have created something so completely cohesive and effortlessly fun. Bounding flute samples backed with a huge bass line lead the drop that is set to get people moving, finishing the Lucky Girl EP with an energetic bang.

Nina Las Vegas' newest EP gives a distinctly human touch to the club genre, as the producer blends collaborative friendships and vocal sampling overall into a unique take on dance music. Her array of references and influences alongside this organic-meets-synthetic sensibility proves her ultimate vision is completely her own.

Catch the club superstar lighting up the stage at Splendour In The Grass 2018, closing the Tiny Dancer Stage on Friday night.

Lucky Girl is out now on NLV Records.

PHOTO BY MISHY TRAN

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