ALBUM REVIEW: TK Syne – Wet T

Self-release

Released: 23.01.26

The first time I ever took Ecstasy, in a state of almost perfect euphoria I wandered into the chill out room of some dive club in Leeds where the DJ seemingly thought it would be funny to play dentistry noises. Instead of barrelling into a horrendous bad trip, I fully embraced the dark underbelly of nightclub culture in the days shortly after the Criminal Justice Act had consigned the wide-open rave scene to the dark, paranoid corridors of abandoned factories and disused warehouses. Paradoxically there were no musical rules.

And Newcastle-based producer TK Syne has no truck here with such rules as album cohesion, musical styles or structural norms. In fact, when they contacted NARC. last year saying “I’m reaching out because my new album feels like the most unapologetic and sonically daring work I’ve created so far. NARC. has a reputation for championing artists who experiment, take risks, and reshape the boundaries of their scenes, and I believe this project sits right in that space,” I was already totally sold.

Not to disappoint, Wet T is an album that exists in a place outside of the usual space-time continuum where alternate versions of tracks sit alongside each other in the track listing. It is a dark and experimental album set deep in the post-club crucible where anything can and will happen, but it’s also an album with a surprising amount of head nodding and euphoric interludes. There are even some background whistles. Wet T is nuts in the most brilliant way, blending raw storytelling with warped, late-night vulnerability.

So, surprisingly the first full-length track on Wet T, Higher, is the most traditional tech house fodder here complete with time-served builds and breaks – the track also returns later as Higher (Sped Up) which is, well, it’s just Higher, sped up – while Sweat follows and sounds like an Amsterdam club after closing. Elsewhere, Alt Money – two minutes of deep and dirty house where vocals are implied or whispered over sub-bass – is a highlight (the track also returns later as Money – an only slightly cleaned up version of dark anti-capitalist rolling house beats).

So, this is not an album without experimentation. Hot & Hotter and Hot & Hotter (Sped Up) follow suit and are reminiscent of Waterfall and Don’t Stop by Stone Roses in artistic sentiment and brass neck realisation, if not musical style. This all may sound a bit sketchy, or maybe that Wet T is a drugs record, which is not the case. There is a cohesion just one that is difficult to pin down, maybe in some subtle production trickery that keeps the listener engaged, or maybe just in pure enjoyment.

Album centrepiece though is the fifteen-minute Live! Basically, an alt-house mix, partly comprising the tracks that have come before, that manages to fold in so many musical themes and emotional triggers that if it is meant to sound like coming up in a club (like The Streets’ Blinded By The Lights) it really does. I’m inclined to say this magazine gives out too many fives but Wet T is a five all day long. In fact, it’s a six.