The Beekeepers first landed on my radar last year when their funky hiphop/breaks jam Transcript was featured on the Jalapeno Funk Vol. 2 compilation. You can check that track out right here and then come back. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

Okay, so given the feel of that last single you can imagine my surprise when I heard their latest offering: a pair of lush orchestral breaks tracks that seemed to come out of… well, leftfield.* Dark Ascending’s slow beat and building strings give it a feeling of impending greatness, like the soundtrack to a good action flick; that scene where the hero gets suited up in slo-mo in preparation for the final confrontation. You know the kind. Sea Change has more of a pensive feel, looking back with a feeling of accomplishment. Maybe this is playing during the end credits, the picture starts to fade as our hero, bruised but not broken, having defeated seemingly insurmountable odds, walks away into a better world.

Er, what was I talking about? Oh right. The Ascending Change EP is a sampler of a forth-coming album from the Beekeepers titled Apiculture, and if the rest of the LP follows suit, I’m sure I’ll be picking it up when it releases. Meanwhile, enjoy the samples, and hit up the links to purchase these tracks now if you can’t wait for the full album. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go shoot the next great super hero movie.

Dark Ascending

Sea Change

Buy ‘em: beatport | iTunes

* Leftfield is a rarely-used term for a poorly-defined subset of downtempo music… though I’m now wondering if the usage above is exactly how the name came to be.