The first Paid Reach — in collaboration with Ominira; edited and produced by Kassem Mosse.
A fresh set of stripped, rubbery, bass-heavy grooves, to consolidate his Idle Hands debut; seaming FWD-night vibes, and Skull Disco, tribalism and grime.
‘Berceuse Heroique back in the fray with the first of three twelves serenading sound system culture. An invocation of the long-lost spirits of pure, heavyweight, hardcore hedonism.
‘Border Control is a fight anthem against Brexit, fusing the industrial slant of Brummie techno with the jungle techno pressure of the early nineties. The Dillinja-esque bassline of Fortune Teller tolls the death knell for all tin pan speakers. Loose Cables is an uncanny ringer for one of Pinch’s most underrated tunes, The Attack Of The Killer Robot Spiders.
‘Pinch runs the voodoo down one more time. He sounds totally pissed off and more fresh than ever.’
The two dubstep pioneers at the top of their game. Truly an album, the music is multi-levelled — dark as anything at times, but engrossingly varied and emotionally shaded, always on the move.
Extra to the LP, with a magnificent, epic, head-scrambling remix, more spaced and spooked than the original. Shackleton’s dream liturgy fully unfolds — an eerie, garbled sublimity, a kind of black-magic plainsong.
Aka Ricardo Villalobos & Argenis Brito.
Rrrrufff and gruff EP by the In Paradisum old boy. Better humoured, nervier and more reined-in for his long break. Ace.
Raf Reza from Toronto and Ramjac Corporation from Irdial.
‘It begins with a bouncy, cut-up, Errorsmith-esque rhythm, with a recurring fright night melody. Rotten Mix is more traditional house, with dub FX and a nice DJ friendly outro. The final uptempo excursion is head-scrambling electro.
‘Swampy Dub on the flip really dismantles everything up to that point, with slo-mo drums and a kind of modern classical sound. The finale Rootless Dub removes all the tough drums, for an ambient decompression.’
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The one-hundredth Trilogy!
Hats off to an amazing, uncompromising run of killer music and lavishly brilliant artwork. Bangers and magic like dirt.
21 gun salute.
A terrific, fresh techno EP by Robin Stewart. Minimalist and dubwise, but fizzing with physical energy, and loaded with thrills and spills, like fairground ghost trains clanking and rattling through Rome, at a clip.
Check it out!
‘Regrows dub techno from the seeds,’ says Boomkat, ‘with a set of twisted warehouse melters that apply advanced dub logic to pointillistic technoid rhythms.
‘The off-grid, lolloping kicks are interesting enough on their own, but it’s how Stewart treats them that makes opener Stomach pop, sinking them in swirling, lysergic goop rather than drowning them out with rinsed tape FX. The oscillating, demonic subs that heave just beneath the surface don’t muddy things completely, they crack the sunroof on the top end, letting the industrialized foley clanks and hoarse vocaloid stutters boot us towards an unexpected destination. And although Compact is more trad on the surface — a gated peak-time roller, natch — Stewart’s canny processing makes the kicks tickle more than they thump. Everything builds up to the title track, where Stewart freezes mind-rinsing dissociated echo spirals into their own rhythmic forms that push against the relentless double-time thuds, weaving phantom polyrhythms out of thin air while spectral voices whisper overhead.’