- Pataphysics (Pat Marks to his mum) is a strange brew. If you were to listen to his latest single, Breathe In, from his new EP, IED - not in depth, just in passing - you’d probably hear the skanky groove and the quietly soulful vox on the chorus. You’d probably assume he’s smoking the same pipe as guys like Fat Freddy’s Drop. Pat might have something of the same brand of smooth as those guys but he’s hardly as chill. In fact, he’s not chill at all.

To be honest you’d have to do a pretty bad job of listening to Pataphysics not to notice he’s a bit fired up about politics. Breathe In is indeed one of his most restrained odes (restrained, not relaxed) and is actually a conscious rap about a balanced lifestyle. I think he’s trying to take a bit of his own advice when he raps: “Why you got to be so bitter? / Try and rap a bit sweeter.”

His soulful, reggae inspirations are a bit at odds with his political ones. He namechecks Public Enemy and Dead Prez as points of reference, but those East Coast stalwarts have, musically, not much in common with Pataphysics. The political fire is certainly on par, however. If Breathe In is all sweetness and serenity, follow-up track Same Shit says screw that! Over an eye-popping wub-wub-wubstep bass, Pat demonstrates that he can spit like a demon and spews a diatribe about race relations in Australia. A lot of it passes by almost too fast to comprehend, but there are some choice soundbytes like: "If you don’t care about refugees locked up that suffer / You probably want to keep Australia white you stupid f***er." Nice one.

What is it with that music? Marks, who is a trumpeter as well as producer rapper and soul singer, in combination with his mate, jazz guitarist Diego Villata, make a fusion of live instrumentation and beats that is surprisingly broad. So you’ll get things like the squelchy saw-wave synth bass of Comply suddenly exploding into slow but booming, trumpet fronted electro-reggae. The thieving magpie approach to musical style, like I said, sometimes it catches you off guard. On balance though, it all adds up in the groove, maybe even that dubstep bass. Fans of the likes of Blue King Brown or Michael Franti and Spearhead will almost certainly find something to key into here.

IED - that’s Improvised Explosive Dance balances a disparate combination of furious flows, pumping synth’n’trumpet blasts and laidback roots skank. It probably shouldn’t work or even be allowed, but Pataphysics are making a pretty strong case for it.

- Chris Cobcroft.