Shall Not Fade’s new Killer Cuts series launches in style with Rarities, the debut Marc Brauner release on the Shall Not Fade label. Seven tracks of weathered lofi house and deep house, the record splits neatly into two halves: a first side slathered in 303 squelch and 90s Ibiza warmth, and a second that wanders into far darker, more broken territory. For a Berlin producer best known until now for a handful of under-the-radar 12”s, it’s a remarkably assured calling card.
The A-side is where Brauner’s sunshine lives. Too Real opens on a bed of vinyl crackle and tape hiss, a warm four-to-the-floor kick settling into a lolloping groove as the 303’s squelch arrives like a late-afternoon signal. Things I Did doubles down on the nostalgia, its shimmering pads and swung percussion evoking sun-bleached terraces and warm evenings, whilst Tool For Lovers brings the drums further forward, the bassline thick and sticky beneath a clipped, bedroom-produced vocal. I Know You Would rounds off the side with the EP’s most obvious peak, a nagging melodic hook chugging over a groove that feels built for the golden hour.
Side B is a different beast entirely. Tears Of The Fallen Angel trades the acid line for a haunted breakbeat, its melancholic keys and heavily reverbed vocal fragments hanging over the drums like mist. Neptun sinks deeper still, all dubbed-out percussion and cavernous space, before closer Out Of Time takes a sharp left turn into post-disco electro, its seven-plus minutes of robotic bass and motorik drums the most forward-looking thing Brauner has committed to tape.
The record never feels disjointed despite its split personality; the lo-fi production sheen — dusty, warm and gently imperfect throughout — ties both sides together into a coherent whole. Rarities is a confident opening salvo for the Killer Cuts series and a debut that should see Marc Brauner’s name crop up in far more crate-digging conversations.
