“This is killer,” says Ben UFO.
You can’t make sense of this, clicking through mp3s, on tin-pan computer speakers. Put the record on, though, and set the controls for the heart of the bloke next door, and it’s terrific. The drum-less, throbbing, droning, wailing, sawing, twinkling reconnaissance of Nothing, with massive, unnerving swoops, throttling and surges.
Beatrice Dillon and Kassem Mosse.
Great photos by Anne Tetzlaff on the sleeve.
A second killer Trilogy EP from DJT in Japan, advancing the legacy of Chain Reaction.
Serious, emotionally reined-in music; structurally minimal, linear and open-ended, without the puppeteering routines of most dance music… but all the more enthralling and grooving, with hefty bass. The sense of monumental, weather-distressed, darkening dread is counter-balanced by this forward momentum, and expertly dubwise light-and-shade, with layered detail.
The reverberative, gong-like tolling of the opener gives way on the flip to machines starting up in a cavernous space, like vast beating wings, with a tumping bottom end, over nine minutes.
In-between is a more atmospheric and tentative interval, with slowly roiling synths and near-and-far, morse-code percussion.
Ace.
Two spaced-out, synthed-up, house tearaways; a chunk of totally fucked-up dancehall; dub techno. A guitar solo and tincture of Fleetwood Mac to boot. TTT measures.
Crafted, varied EP from Kenneth Lay and Jason Carr, out of the Metasplice milieu in Philly. A couple of ant nests, a droner with an mbalax tic, and a monster-crunchy, sun-up soundscape. Boot cyan lean.
Bracing portions of the screaming abdabs dressed as naked, hooligan machine-funk — fizzing, stomping, juddering and going mental in the furnace of high noon like whizzed-up children of the hydra’s teeth.
This started out a couple of years ago as a grounation drumming session above the old headquarters of the Mystic Revelation Of Rastafari, in Wareika Hill, Kingston, JA. Four funde, a repeta and a bass drum. Back in London, contributing flute and guitar, Kenrick Diggory unbottled the deep rootical psychedelia and sheer awe of Hunting — the Keith-Hudson-versus-Count-Ossie wonder of the world — and Tapes added electronics, a shot of Drum Song… and a giddily intense binghi dub.
A cosmic, percussive jam and bitter-sweet electroid house — both veering sharply into dark, steely, dubwise self-harm. Allegedly the fiftieth utterance of our favourite dance music label in the world. Hats off! More worries!
D.K. and Low Jack.
None other than Blawan on his lonesome ownsome — after collaborations with Pariah as Karenn, and Surgeon as Trade — returning to the blood-drenched scene of his heinous Why They Hide Their Bodies.
New name, new sound; heavier and slower than his Ternesc output. The title track is the banger. Acid techno — deliberate, widescreen and ominous.
Samo lived in Hong Kong for a bit. He rescued a dog and brought him back to Stockholm. He skates but that’s not him on the front. He put together one of the best very records on LIES but this four-tracker kills it dead. Ben UFO’s been rinsing it. The dog’s name is Denzil.
Massive bounce to the ounce on the A-side, guaranteed to boing a dancefloor into a vibrational mess.
Four honed earhole sluicers, on the flip.
‘Recorded across East London, South-East Kent and Snaresbrook Crown Court during what is described as “the UK media’s attempt at divining integrity from the orchestrated turbulence of Brexit”, with the record setting out to “juggle the documentation of this particular moment with the desire to discern motivation from despair”. World In Action takes in field recordings, woodwind freakouts and percussion from Valentina Magaletti amongst other elements’ (The Quietus).