Techno tempos but hewn with an industrial hammer and chisel with no thought for fussy detail or finesse. “Wild and harsh like the White Mountains of Crete” they say. Yep, sometimes that’s just what you need – the no pretence of a course grappa, something monolithic and stripped down; brutish repetition and rhythmic noise basslines.
Sound System
Malleus: We Float Like Concrete
Experimental (via Dubstep origins) 140bpm excursions with some industrial noise flavours, supported by the likes of Goth Trad, Joe Nice & The Bug.
‘Falling Through Inner Earth’ is the stand out sound system banger here, everything zeroed in to the one point of focus; a dentist’s drill incessantly and sadistically probing the same cavity as you float on a bed of opioid sub bass. Raw nerves are jagged as it starts to squeal against bone. We’ve all been there…
Kracht: Woestijn Scooter (Green Fetish)
Choicest cut off the EP. Ultra deep, seismic judder kicks with an undulating hymnal dirge that tightropes the line between irritating (and a bit obvious) and faintly haunting. It’s the little harmonising snippets of choralesque refrain that keep it interesting (and quite catchy too).
Boylan: Hatched 26 / Trends & Boylan: Bedlam (Mean Streets)
Finally out.
‘Twisted Brass’ was one of the stand tunes that gripped me by the throat and nutted me off the last ever Boxed show on Rinse back in Oct 2017. An absolute snarler and exactly how Grime should deliver: short blows to the abdomen and straight to the MFing point.
This one off the album he did with Trends towards the end of last year (which I somehow missed?) is even more unrelenting in its brutish orc stomp. He’s kind of playing with a formula now, and fine-tuning, honing the template, but damn, who cares? The man’s perfected the sound system grunt to a T.
Carrier / Scalameriya (47)
47017 – Overlook and Positive Centre debut their collaborative project, Carrier.
Masterful production on these impressively crunchy, jagged, industrial broken beats with a BIG rolling juggernaut of a low end. There’s an infectious, driving, piston funk woven into these tracks as they build and reach cruise speed, surely the result of Overlook’s D&B background and sensibility (over on UVB-76 Music etc). Sound system bangers. As is young Scaly’s ‘Ghroar’ tune below.
47018 – Serbia’s Scalameriya. Normally all I can say about his schtick is Meh! with a shrug; his competent but uninspired, perfectly adequate but textbooky, almost B-list, broken beat thumping and bashing. Still, essays handed in, no matter how badly written, can usually get you at least a C. So finished beats perfect, as they say. All that aside, he seems to ratchet it up a gear and break out for one stormer of a track ‘Ghroar’ injecting the template with rippling sheets of blurting, buzzsaw filth to make it monolithic, quite ritualistic and very nasty. Could’ve/should’ve gone even further though.
Betek: Discipline (Rotterdam Electronix)
A2. ‘Drivers License’ is the one you want here. A bubbling, acidic electro, slow cooker, brought to the boil for an eventual serving of dark rave, best set aside and served cold. Props to my pal Ghetto G for hipping me to this one.
DiNT: Hooker (Horo)
Must say, I didn’t think too much of this when it came out in March. I’d been playing catch up and listening to a tonne of the Grey Area et al. stuff over the last months so maybe I’d just ODed on the Horo sound? It sounded too muddy and murky with all its (mercifully) low in the mix corrosive EDM vocals and farty bass. I bought it though, like the nerd I am, and persevered with it in the pick-up with the sub woofer cranked on my night drives home. And suddenly I got right into it. It seemed to get better on repeat listens (something that’s not always or often the case). The extended 10 minute ‘Skewer’ was the one that did it for me and pulled me in: the cavernous Doom claps that whip up the vibe at the beginning….but then I wish they hadn’t been dropped out of the mix altogether….something could have really been done with those?
Unwitch – the first session (Leyla Records)
Some choice cuts off this latest compilation; Unhuman, Mondkopf, but Manni Dee’s contribution is particularly relentless; full on hiss, grit and broken beat bounce that unleashes an infectious, industrialised, Rotterdam Termination Source-esque ‘Poing’ with lashings of dub chamber white out.
Boylan (Slimzos 012)
That’s what I’m talking about! Boylan sneaks a last one in before the year plays out. Meticulous funereal Grime with an undead lumber – there’s almost a kind of Nosferatu-esque (1922 silent version) jerkiness and flicker to the swing and shuffle and dread laden bass grind. Sound system carnage guaranteed.
Pugilist: Raindance EP
Pugilist smashes it again on Kenzo’s Artikal. He’s going to be one to watch if he keeps this up. ‘Raindance’ drops dessicated, concrete block beats and such hugely compressed bass weight you feel like you’re levitating a few inches off the floor on a magic carpet of low frequencies. No idea how the kid does it? but it’s special!
‘Murmur’ is the other standout for me, with a quirky stagger and lolloping swing to the groove; more slimey, rolling, more organic and wastelandish.
