Over the course of their career, Brighton duo Frankie Stew and Harvey Gunn have grafted to hone a sound that is inimitably theirs, while still being seen to wear their influences firmly on their sleeves.
Across Breathing Exercises, the duo’s most recent LP, Gunn’s self-assured and versatile beats allow Stew the license to compellingly explore his sprechgesang flow and produce some of the best bars of his career. Skilfully laid-back vocals evoke early Mike Skinner and Roots Manuva, and current genre contemporaries such as Loyle Carner (who himself provides a verse on track Dream Factory). Understated drum pattern and crisp, sparse production readies the floor for the confident, introspective vocal chops of album opener/title track Breathing Exercises and Humble Pie to traverse the subtleties of being a young adult in modern-day Britain.
There exists an interesting duality across the 15-track record. Stew’s vocals – introspective and relatable – would make an exceedingly good spoken word album on their own merit. Gunn’s instrumentation, combining throwback garage sounds and delicate piano key, would be a great listen as an instrumental album in and of itself (in fact Breathing Exercises (The Instrumentals), recently added to Spotify, confirms this). It is through each other though that Stew and Gunn find their best artistic selves.
Breathing Exercises sees Franke Stew and Harvey Gunn talents twisting and weaving together, poking and prodding at one another in exciting, evocative fashion; this is lo-fi hip hop stripped down to its component parts and repurposed as perhaps one of the most complete UK rap projects of the year.
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