Itoa: Oh No EP Album Review

Between hyperpop’s entry into the mainstream, Gen Z’s embrace of drum’n’bass, and the international success of regional genres like footwork and singeli, warp-speed electronic music is everywhere, leading the charge as popular music, broadly speaking, picks up the pace. In his work as Itoa, the British producer Alex Godoy has staked his claim in dance music’s fast lane, regularly clocking 160-plus BPMs without ever stalling out on straightforward genre imitation. His music draws deeply and liberally from rapid-fire strains of house and techno—classic acid, footwork, bassline, and jungle—which he manipulates into wildly danceable assemblages. At its best, an Itoa song is packed with intricately moving parts that, taken altogether, coalesce into a sound that’s rubbery and relentless. On his latest EP, Oh No, Godoy presents some of his most kinetic, funky, and oddly beautiful work to date, refining his sound while also unlocking promising new skills.

Opener “Wet Brain” kicks things off on a slightly anxious note, building from a timid hi-hat and woodblock rattle before escalating into a footwork-fueled trance banger, complete with chirping synths and choppy vocal science. What’s most remarkable is how seamlessly Godoy segues from pounding dance music into unexpected pockets of beatless ambience and back again. His talent for wrongfooting the listener with both beauty and brutality extends to “Girlboss Microplastix,” which lurches forward with a broken drum break before the floor falls out and lands in a pocket of ominous calm, a respite before the violence of the drums resumes with a vengeance.

Godoy’s color palette brightens considerably toward the middle of the EP, at which point things get wildly fun. The title track, a collaboration with Japanese performer なかむらみなみ (Nakamura Minami), pits her staccato, shit-talking flow against an alternately throbbing and squelchy bassline that wouldn’t be out of place on a SOPHIE record. Unlike other vocalists who perform over footwork—like Jessy Lanza, who floats dreamily above the mix, or DJ Taye, who races at light speed against the clock—the rapper’s hop-scotching vocals fasten perfectly into the beat’s pocket, her every syllable building out the song’s kinetic rhythm and unlocking the latent mischief and swagger of Itoa’s production.

But the euphoric highpoint is the massive “Catch Eyes,” which weaves a grinding TB-303 bassline into a quick-stepping syncopated rhythm; then, just as everything’s running smoothly, Godoy detonates the song’s groove with an explosion of racing pinwheel synths and babbling, fragmented vocals. For an artist so skilled at producing utilitarian, floor-filling dance music, Godoy clearly delights in proving just how far he can tilt a track off its axis without ever losing the flow.