Surly sounds are rarely as invigorating—or even liberating—as they are on "Lies Are Chic", the quick-stepping, shadow-boxing new jam from Dawit Eklund, co-founder of Washington, D.C.'s 1432 R. It's all in that gnarly square-wave bassline, which doesn't even sound like notes so much as an ellipsis made of snarls, or a string of pearls the color (and texture) of a bruise. The snapping, shuffling sense of movement—steer clear of those snares unless you want to get hurt—faintly recall the turn-of-the-millennium West London broken beat of labels like 2000 Black. It makes sense: that, too, was a vision of funk at once joyous and intractable.-=-=-=-

Around the bass and drums swirls an atmosphere that's more ambiguous: Tolling bells throw off queasy quarter-tones, pads droop like wilted flowers, and there's a bleepy, atonal counterpoint that occasionally darts out from behind all the other stuff to throw you for a loop and then disappear again. Towards the end, a pitched down voice wreathed by birdsong murmurs, "Children of space, restless." Restless, maybe—but they still know exactly where they're going, and they've got plenty of fuel to get them there.