I have to confess that when I heard the muted, Burial-style chords and Raffertie's ethereal voice crooning "when we touch… I can't breathe" at the start of "Touching," I did a mental sign of the cross and begged the gods to spare me from this melancholy witch house shit. No more sad ghosts, please, I'll do anything! My prayers were fully answered at the 1:46 mark, when the doom and gloom lets up for a breath and fragments into scattered, breakbeat chaos that sounds not unlike early Squarepusher. Meanwhile, the "when we touch" chorus morphs from pure cheesiness into something more like skin-prickling despair. Hooray!Raffertie (aka Benjamin Stefanski), a 26-year-old from London who started spinning at techno-meccas like Fabric and Space as a student (attending the Birmingham Conservatoire, no less), is making his name as one of the imaginative whiz kids in the bizznazz. His debut album, Sleep of Reason, is due out on Ninja Tune on August 6, and Raffertie has confessed to drawing inspiration from his childhood in a British seaside town, its faded grandeur, and its… hordes of dying old people. No wonder this tune is so dark.Michelle really wants you to touch her - @MichelleLHOOQ
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