Etch - Old School Methods

Label: Keysound

Of the groups piecing together the shards of dubstep’s remains, Dusk and Blackdown’s Keysound imprint aren’t just leading the way – they’ve practically lapped the competition. As discussed in last month’s Visionist review, the stable have rejected the steady onslaught of the 4/4 on the UK scene, pushing forward vital new blends of grime, garage and dubstep under the loose banner of ‘dark 130'. After lending a platform to shining new talents Beneath, Wen and Visionist, Keysound offer up another strong debut courtesy of Etch, who brings a distinct junglist edge to his tough compositions.

Hybrid

The EP kicks off with its strongest player in the form of Hybrid, a heady blend of choppy melodics, thundering bass hits and classic vocal cuts. The pace is frenetic and the rhythm is rude as they come, but Etch handles the disparate elements with a masterful hand: the soundfield bristles with life without ever feeling cluttered. Next J-One joins the fray for Sounds, whose 2step woodblock pattern feels blissfully gentle by comparison, twinned with subtle melodies and drifting vocal snips.

On the B-side, Sphynx steps back into the darkness, as vocals straight out of an old ‘ardcore tape are stitched to another expert 2step rhythm, adorned by surgical break cuts and dreamy pads. Finally Lost Methods incorporates menacing DnB bass swipes, resulting in a potent concoction with as much emphasis on white space as on the sounds themselves. Sounds’ recurring vocal line, “whenever we hear sounds / we are changed, we are no longer the same,” could be viewed as nothing more than a truism, but for Etch it feels particularly apt. Here is a producer who has listened to the UK’s hardcore past, has been changed by it, who now revitalises those sounds to change others, perpetuating the cycle. Music that changes people that change music that changes.

7.5/10

Walton - Beyond

Label: Hyperdub

‘A song for yesterday, today, tomorrow and beyond,’ a pitched-down voice intones on Beyond’s opening track. It’s a perfect introduction to the debut album of Hyperdub’s Sam Walton, who established himself over a handful of EPs as a genre-bending bass futuristic of rare talent and confidence. Now on Hyperdub’s first LP of the year, Walton combines the sounds of house, garage and grime into a rich, singular experience that impresses on first listen and still demands to be visited time and again.

Much of Beyond is concerned with a subtle interplay between light and dark, as Walton effortlessly flicks through genres with palpable zeal. This duality is perfected right out of the gate on Need To Feel, where a breathy vocal is laced over gentle chords with remarkable softness. Yet at each moment of delicacy, Walton brings it all back down to the ‘floor, here with a deep tunnelling bassline and taut synth tones. Across the album as a whole, these thrilling contrasts provide many of the highlights, particularly unforgettably when a sultry RnB acappella meets the tough, mechanised beat pattern in You & Me.

Need To Feel

The interplay between different hues is a strong look for Walton, but his productions are just as stylishly effective when he heads straight into the darkness. The dangerous acid licks of Help Me Out make for one of the LP’s early highlights, while later crushed grime instrumental Frisbee pose a hauntingly stark listen. These compositions amaze at every turn because they are so busy yet never cluttered, exemplified on the low-slung Grit where a detailed percussive field, husky vocals and a venomous bassline are kept under tight control; enhanced rather than hindered by the richness of the composition. Each of these cuts could easily kill on the dancefloor, yet Walton saves his best shot at the darkness for the end in penultimate track Amazon, where an alchemic fusion of a rugged house stomp, whispered vocals and noir grime notes make for a stunning album finale.

While Walton’s earlier productions were marked by their stark monochrome hues, many of Beyond’s impressive moments are found when a new melodic sensibility begins to take hold. The lusty one-two punch of Love On The Dancefloor and Every Night in particular cements the album’s emotional core. The former is a chilled affair, all soft pads and murmuring vocals that cushion the beat. It’s not miles away from a laid-back Sepalcure cut, but it all feels like an introduction when compared to Every Night, an effervescent party-starter which pitches the same seductive vocal to an intriguingly masculine tone.

Every Night

Just as the ‘I’m gonna dance away my clothes off’ vocal recurs across these two songs, Walton laces the entire album with melodies and samples which are later re-appropriated. A remarkable example can be found on the beautiful interlude Take, where a mournful vocal is finally drowned in tear-strained, heavy-handed piano chords which are later slyly referenced amidst Grit’s bristling percussion. The effect lends an authentic coherence to an album that crosses so many styles and moods, precluding the jarring effect to which many hybrid-genre albums unfortunately succumb. More than anything, these subtle cues show how much love and care has gone into these tracks, a fact which really pays off considering Walton’s deft grasp over genre and tone. Hyperdub’s Kode9 could clearly see the talent here from the very start, but for listeners Beyond is a true coming of age, fitting flawlessly into the label’s esteemed canon: an uncommonly accomplished debut, a sonic world that becomes more inviting with each listen.

8/10

Read this review in context at Inverted Audio.

Zomby - With Love

Label: 4AD

While some critics may think that Zomby’s notorious personality is not relevant to a discussion of his music, one might equally argue the opposite. The obnoxious web presence is perhaps not wholly unmerited, masking as it does a producer who is eminently talented. At the same time, the infamous no-shows at headlining spots across his career correlate neatly with an artist who rarely finishes his own tracks, instead releasing albums of beautiful sketches which range from tantalising to frustrating in their brevity. On With Love, his third full length (and second for major indie label 4AD), Zomby’s character is more pertinent than ever; as the album’s first disc could almost be called a summary of the producer’s evolving style over the last half decade.

It’s testament to Zomby’s musicality and his unique voice that he has legions of fans despite the notoriety: the man makes good music. Yet still, With Love is a something of a hard sell. 33 tracks stretched over two discs - parts of the album show Zomby at his best, yet as a whole the LP is somewhat unwieldy. Some may find the abundance gratifying: if you’re going to keep all the songs under four minutes in length, you may as well offer a lot of them. On the other hand, it’s difficult not to feel that trimmed down to the fifteen finest, With Love could be one of the year’s best albums. It will ultimately come down to a question of individual taste, but there is undeniably a lot to love here.

Ascension / Sunshine In November / Overdose / Memories

With Love’s first disc offers a cross-section of Zomby’s musical history, from the ravey breaks of Where Were U In ’92? on Overdose and 777 to the delicate darkness of Dedication recalled on If I Will. Being Zomby, there is of course the obligatory RnB sample, here on Rendezvous, where Brandy's voice is turned distant and anaesthetised. It’s a nocturnal, sometimes unsettling listen, where the mood can stray from urgent to calm within seconds, conjuring an effective dissonance. In what is becoming a trademark, the album deals in myriad references to the UK’s hardcore continuum; here jungle and hardcore rub shoulders with grime and garage, all woven into a sound indisputably Zomby’s own.

The disc hits its stride with Horrid, all tunnelling bass hits and bristling, paranoid synthwork. From here is a run of some of the artist’s best work to date; If I Will’s urgent vocal is set over a field of cheap grime strings and crystalline xylophone-esque melodies, through the low-slung lope and glittering piano of Isis to the dazed breaks of It’s Time. The disc reaches its zenith with Memories, a delicately-crafted duel between soft and hard synthwork, set over a military beat pattern. Yet after this, With Love’s first disc seems to lose its edge. Aside from the mournful darkness of Pray For Me, the same ideas are reworked with less flair, giving the disc’s second half the distinct taint of excess.

Soliloquy

The album’s second disc looks further to Zomby’s future as an artist, but it doesn’t venture that far from his established sound. Here the familiar atmospheres, forged by fragile synthwork painted in bright digital strokes, are supported by skittering 808 percussion, like a tasteful zombification of the current trap trend. These tracks are at their best when Zomby grows introspective, and the run from Reflection In Black Glass to Sunshine In November is where the majority of the disc’s highlights are hidden. These two beautiful beatless sketches are ruthlessly brief, but stunning nonetheless. They also sandwich album highlight Soliloquy, the closest With Love gets to an actual song with a real sense of structure, progression and melodic richness.

The complexity of this late-album highlight illuminates just how impressive Zomby’s work can be when it’s simple: for the album’s best 40-odd minutes he works with just a few sonic layers and practically zero structural progression yet the results are utterly enchanting. Some may justifiably call this album excessive, or denounce the brief tracks as lazy sketches, but since Dedication Zomby’s music has been something that demands to be taken on its own terms. Perhaps the magic of his productions depends on these qualities: if Zomby sat down to write ten 6-minute tracks as a coherent album, would the end result be this good? This reviewer thinks not. With Love is the latest beautiful, messy release from an increasingly singular artist, who deserves to be appreciated because of, rather than despite, his flaws.

7.5/10

DjRum – Seven Lies

Label: 2nd Drop

In a sense, all music is sound collage. Musicians layer discrete instruments or synths to turn disassociated fragments into a coherent whole. Unfortunately in the dance world this transformative process frequently falls back on formula; with innumerable electronic tracks floating around on the web harbouring uninventive compositions forced into identical structures. Since he stepped onto the scene a couple of years back, DjRum has done it differently.

Felix Manuel first stepped into view with a couple of low-key (but certainly worthwhile) releases that toyed with dark atmospheres and dubbed-out effects.  On 2011’s superb Mountains EP a unique talent was announced; four crackling club constructions were filled by gorgeous vocal and instrumental samples, all underpinned by dusty beat patterns and low-end to spare. Already an interest in longer forms could be seen; such as in the combined 14-minute stretch of Mountains or the extended nocturnal discursions of his Watermark 12”. Here was an artist exploring laterally, unburdened by the structural formulas that relegate so much dance music to homogeneity. Now he returns to his stable at the reliable 2nd Drop imprint to drop the label’s first long-player, returning to his sample-heavy approach with a new warmth perfectly suited to the album format.

Como Los Cerdos / DAM / Arcana (Do I Need You) / Obsession / Lies / Honey / Anchors / Thankyou

Manuel’s approach to layers and samples is handled with a rare artisanal quality, each collection of found-sounds and machine music thoughtfully shaped into coherent songs that shift and mutate before your ears. Although his music seems to run to some unfathomable dream logic, his debut album, Seven Lies, never comes across as anything other than an artistic whole. A quick glance at the gorgeous cover art should assure the listener that this is a complete work, put together with delicacy, love, and more than a little grit; and all this just so happens to result in one of the most intoxicatingly atmospheric albums you’re likely to hear all year.

The individual quality to Manuel’s sounds are a direct result of his organic approach to structure and sampling. Opener Obsession is a perfect example; where a typical field of syncopated beats and airy synth work plays host to delicate wind and string samples which add a genuinely emotive strain to the sound. The following two tracks, Como Los Cerdos and the magnificent DAM continue to lope along with hip hop swagger, with head-nodding grooves drawing melodic influence from a maze of musical influences; obvious touchstones like garage, jazz and hip hop nestling against dub, opera and old movie samples. Manuel’s attention to structure is particular evident on the latter, DAM’s final minutes introducing swooping strings and ghosts of crackling grime bars that prove a fitting close.

A trio of powerful tracks follow that delve deeper and darker, most impressively on the constantly evolving garage stepper Arcana (Do I Need You). Here percussive accents, notably textured drum rolls and compressed claps, are accompanied by an increasingly heavy low-end, before Manuel allows the track to unspool beautifully in its final movement, the fractured re-emergence of the refrain showing his deft skill at processing vocals. Again, it’s the structure of these disparate elements which is so impressive; tracks like Lies work because of their contrast. Here an exercise in dub physics is played out, balancing Shadowbox’s fragile vocals with a nakedly beautiful harp line with generous bass weight and spare 2step mechanics. The album offers many such moments, where the listener may end up wondering just how Manuel conceived of piecing such different sounds together to endlessly imaginative ends.

Yet it is just over halfway through the album that a track arrives which is undoubtedly the culmination of DjRum’s work to date. Honey takes these soft / hard, light / dark binaries to their logical extreme, as a soulful vocal, ‘he’s a sinner’, is put through an electronic blender to startling effect. This is supplemented by cavernous bass stutters, mechanical clanking and serrated bass stabs which act as an unsettling counterpoint to the sweetened instrumental samples. Not once across the album does Manuel let the quality slip either; his attention to contrast, detail and space is played out across a variety of forms, which continue through Arcana’s cold, dubbed-out coda and moody penultimate cut Anchors.

By the close of Seven Lies, DjRum has taken the listener on a journey through his influences, in turns fragmented and coherent, powerful and beautiful, warm and brooding. It is precisely because of these contrasts that he is able to evoke atmospheres of such power: each song constructs a musical space of shifting dimensions that the listener is invited to inhabit, rather than a simple layering of separate elements. The ragged DnB assault of Thankyou proves the perfect closer, encapsulating all of Seven Lies’ strengths: tough and delicate, detailed with immaculate precision, a ninth slice of sonic engineering, never less than dazzling. Here is an album by an artist who plays only by his own rules, and the infinitesimal details of each soundscape demand to be played again and again. Yet precisely because of Manuel’s prescient ability to augment his atmosphere with organic samples, you’ll never completely unlock this album’s magical secrets.

9/10

Bicep – Stash

Label: Aus

Rise

Irish duo Bicep’s meteoric rise to stardom over the last twelve months has been an impressive journey. With an early interest in 90s revivalism and no-nonsense Jersey sounds added to the superb You / Don’t EP (whose A-side made the top ten of our Year End Roundup), the duo have been taking the scene by storm. However this ascent has not gone without its share of detractors. For every listener enamoured by Vision Of Love’s straight-up euphoria, there was someone dissatisfied by their wholesale appropriation of a decades-old style to cash in on a trend. This criticism did not seem unfounded at the time, but the duo’s choice to air years worth of unreleased material on their Beats In Space podcast hinted at something different; darker sonic territory explored with the deft craftsmanship that has marked out each of their releases to date. Now for their second release on Will Saul’s Aus imprint, the pair give some of their new material a chance to shine, effectively heading off any critics in the process.

Opener Stash should serve as a perfect transition for those familiar with Bicep’s previous material. While the moody bass line and twitching percussion may lack the wide-eyed ecstasy of their last EP’s piano stompers, the heavy 4/4 and shimmering synthwork provide ample compensation. On Courtside Drama an ambient synth wash locks into the analog sound that is currently sweeping the scene, as piping synth notes take a dreamy lead over a deep bass throb and syncopated drum patterns.

The Game

Up until this point it’s been a largely successful stylistic shift for the pair, but the first two tracks never truly amaze. Thankfully, this is because whoever is in charge has backloaded this EP, saving the two best cuts for last. While Stash is positioned as the primary club cut here, superb third track Rise outstrips the title track’s dancefloor credentials with ease. While many of the sounds are familiar; jangling syncopations and heavy kicks, here iridescent synthwork plays out with alacrity across a track whose structure is clearly indebted to slow-burning techno, easily making for one of Bicep’s most memorable tunes to date. The Wire-sampling closer The Game is just as impressive; languid synthworks recall Twin Peaks' sounds, playing out mysteriously over a spacious arrangement of hissing hi-hats and an echoing woodblock hit.

There’s nothing wrong with this EP’s first two cuts, it more feels like the stylistic switch-up took a moment to get going. Once they get deep on the B-side the effect is magical, and quite besides being great music, the Stash EP fiercely proves that Bicep have more than a few tricks left up their sleeve.

7.5/10

Huxley – Bellywedge

Label: Hypercolour

Tring’s Michael Dodman, aka Huxley, burst onto the scene in a big way last year, following up the early success of 2011’s Shower Scene with the tasty Out Of The Box EP and, most notably, the excellent all-out house monster that was Let It Go on Hypercolour, which charted on our own year-end list of 2012’s best tracks. The latter half of 2012 saw Huxley’s sound holding strong but refusing to change, with a series of remixes and an EP that didn’t quite live up to his early promise. A year later Huxley returns to Hypercolour on strong form, and while he’s still not really going for variation, these two offerings are the young producer’s strongest pieces since his last outing on the taste-making label.

Little Things

Bellywedge kicks off with tropical notes and skipping hi-hats before syrupy synths and a strong vocal (à la Shower Scene) lead up to a strong drop, a sub-bass rattling rhythm that dominates over earworm vocal snips and a boisterous bassline. It’s a more stripped-down affair than one might expect for the producer, and it feels at times like a key element is missing from proceedings, but Bellywedge functions due to its ruthless efficiency, providing a generous dose of just what the dancefloors crave.

B-side Little Things is a little more interesting, and ultimately the more exciting cut of the pair. A skipping 2step pattern builds up to a series of arresting, metallic stabs that introduce a deep, intoxicating garage burner with tight drumwork, an irresistable bassline and sweltering vocal cuts. After a good but slightly unimaginative A-side, it’s gratifying to hear that Huxley can still knock up a surprise without sacrificing the raw scale of his unashamed big-room sound.

6.5/10