New Jersey’s Mike Volpe and his musical project Clams Casino present something of an enigma. Though Squealer is unlikely to be the place to find favourable references to Lil B and Soulja Boy, Clams Casino - with his quite stunning Instrumentals LP (released by Type Records last year) - gives us a reason to mention both in a slightly giddy, gushing light.

Volpe became a genuinely hot topic in mainstream hip-hop last year when his expressive, meticulously-produced loops and backing tracks reached the ears of the radio-friendly MC’s mentioned above. Stripped of the rambling bragging of MTV’s finest, however, Volpe’s productions land themselves firmly in an unexpectedly inventive, even melancholic, new territory. With an evidently fine-tuned sensitivity to melodic cross-patterns and surprise rhythmic interventions that belie his 24 years, Clams Casino is one of music’s rare prizes: a form that happily straddles the worlds of radio hip-hop and chillwave. The sound of XXL and Altered Zones clashing, perhaps.

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