Rules broke through by reworking Womack and Womack’s “Teardrops” until the internet ran off with it, and the official release came after the fact. Everything since has been quieter and, to my ear, better. “In Your Love” closes his new EP, and it is one of only two cuts on there with no guest singer credited.
The groove is unhurried in a way that takes some nerve. He builds outward from keys, and you can hear the piano player in the voicings, chords that lean and resolve instead of sitting flat under a filter while the arrangement does the work. The drums stay soft. Not quite four minutes go by without a single moment demanding your attention, and I mean that as praise.
He came up on saxophone and piano, which explains how little this leans on a build. It landed on Counter Records, the Ninja Tune imprint, and that feels right for a house record with no interest in shouting. Rules said he made the EP “for calm long drives, sunsets with friends,” and I believe him. The rest of the tracklist hands the emotional weight to singers like SHYA and Coldabank; Rules keeps this one for himself.
He has described the feeling he chases as two people dancing together with “the rest of the world blurred out around them.” That is a harder thing to land than a drop. He lands it.
