Short Circuitry: November 2009

Hyperdub

Welcome to the somewhat delayed Short Circuitry for November 2009. Following on from the last edition’s focus on the new Hyperdub compilation, this weekend Kode9 curated a Hyperdub Five night in London, gathering all the label’s big players together for an evening at Corsica Studios. It seems appropriate then to pick up where last month left off, with an event that both celebrated the impressive past of the label – and of the scene as a whole – and offered tantalising glimpses into what the next couple of years have in store.

Kevin Martin’s King Midas Sound offered deep, dubby vibrations and all-encompassing bass ripped straight from his work as The Bug, and Cooly G’s funky is fast becoming unique even amongst its parent genre – stripped back to the bare bones and intensely percussive. Mala of Digital Mystikz played a set of older tracks that managed to hark back to his status as genre originator – immediately followed the technicolour future-funk of Ikonika, who managed to do the exact opposite, suggesting one of the many routes Hyperdub’s roster may well head next.

All this having been said, the night belonged, appropriately enough, to Kode9, whose three hour set in the second room managed to encompass the entire breadth of the last two decades of pirate-radio nurtured music. Shifting from the new school of soca-infused funky beats to dubstep, garage and a climactic, chaotic forty-five minutes of old school D’n'B rollers, the most poignant moment still managed to arrive right at its end – new Burial track ‘Lambeth’, spectral, slow, and driven by the chimes of a distant sonar emitter. The arrival of Burial’s new album next year will be welcome indeed, and yet another twist in Hyperdub’s ever expanding storyline.

Burial – ‘Lambeth’ (Radio Rip)

Even beyond Hyperdub’s immediate remit, dubstep’s all-pervasive expansion continues unabated – this month has seen the release of one of its definitive documents thus far, Untold’s Gonna Work Out Fine EP. Jack Dunning has been operating within view for a couple of years, but nothing could quite have paved the way for this latest release, which fuses his increasingly rapid-fire mixing style to stripped-down grime dynamics and piano breaks unashamedly nicked from classic house. The result sounds like an entire genre reconfigured, leaving it’s spacious essence unharmed whilst shifting every other element like sides of some conceptual Rubik’s cube.

Taken purely as a dancefloor artefect, Gonna Work Out Fine remains sprinkled throughout with a cheeky sense of humour and rudeness that maintains an intrinsic gonzo appeal – certainly a plus point for filling clubs. ‘Stop What You’re Doing’ is a case in point, a slow-building intro suddenly bursting into a demolition ball of mind-warpingly elastic bass tones and jagged, ascending riffs. Despite its immediacy, anyone searching for depth among the madness would do well to continue listening. As if any more evidence of Untold’s longevity was needed, the sense of nostalgia and yearning encoded in ‘Palamino’s DNA more than provides it, setting the scene for a nocturnal river of glassy bleeps that washes delicately from ear-to-ear, the spell occasionally broken by sudden regions of chaotic turbulence.

Untold – ‘Palamino’

Elsewhere within similar regions, Untold’s Hessle Audio labelmate Ramadanman has just recorded a mix for the seventh in Tempa’s long-running Dubstep Allstars compilation series. Whilst Chef’s mix for the first disc reaches for a more typical ‘sound, all slow builds and sudden, earthshaking bass drops, the smoother, more cerebral nature of Ramdanman’s mix lends it a great deal more longevity for headphone listens. Seamlessly shifting from the slinky post-garage atmospheres of Untold & D Franklin’s ‘Beacon’ and Pangaea’s ‘Router’ to razor-edged junglist chaos from Mickey Pearce and Shortstuff, it effortlessly provides a neat overview of the past year or so in ‘alternative’ dubstep circles. Yet quite aside from its usefulness as a document of an increasingly fertile scene, the deeply felt emotion invested in Ramadanman’s ‘I Beg You’, Pangaea’s spectacular ‘Why’ and Peverelist’s symphonic ‘Bluez’ lends the entire record a sustained resonance that lasts long after the final notes of Mount Kimbie’s ‘Fifty Mile View’ fade away. Not just one for newcomers then, but also very much a worthwhile listen in its own right.

Ramdanman – ‘Humber’

In 12” releases this month, special mention must be made of Bristol’s Guido. One third of the ‘Purple Wow’ trio along with Joker and Gemmy, his second set of tunes for Punch Drunk mark the pinnacle of all three’s achievements thus far. ‘Beautiful Complication’ heralds a movement towards mutant, electro-shocked R’n’B, Aarya’s angelic vocals set to a startlingly minimalist and occasionally brutal backing track. This obvious contrast between sweet and sour sets up a deliciously human tension, and one that only finds its resolution in ‘Chakra’ on the reverse, which opens up the claustrophobic atmosphere and allows sudden bursts of colour to light the mix in tones of electric blue. Its last minute is tantalizingly brief, as a waterfall of Detroit-inspired synth tones suddenly emerges in a whirl of phosphorescent energy. The potential tragedy here is that Guido’s gestation within circles considered to be ‘niche’ may well prevent the exposure his most so sorely deserves: this is what the future of pop music sounds like, and Cowell and co. would do well to keep that fact in mind.

Guido – ‘Beautiful Complication’

Elsewhere, blogger extraordinaire and sometime Pitchfork columnist Martin Clark’s Keysound Recordings has notched up a quite staggering set of releases in the past few weeks. The first is the debut 12” from Kowton, whose ‘Stasis (G Mix)’ sounds a little like you might expect Burial to if he’d been raised on a diet of classic Detroit techno rather than pirate radio jungle. Awash in static crackle and disembodied diva vocals, Kowton’s slow-mo garage beat feels palpably uncomfortable, while distant dub chords generate a hair-raising tension akin to walking through the wrong part of town a little too late at night. By the time it tails off it leaves every sense on fire, a hyper-awareness all too familiar if you’ve ever been terrified by the sudden wind-borne movement of a streetlamp-lit shadow. Also released on Keysound this month is a pair of releases from Grievous Angel – of particular note is his astounding redux of Dusk & Blackdown’s Margins Music album, which will be covered in more detail next month.

Kowton – ‘Stasis’ (G Mix)

Alongside Kowton, neatly furthering the convergence between UK sounds and the immersive, introspective world of techno is Bath’s Asusu, whose debut 12” is released in December on Project:Squared. ‘Small Hours’ neatly skims the bleeding edge between genres, a pulsing synth figure worthy of Maurizio pivoting gracefully throughout, mutating incrementally behind a beat that shifts seamlessly from two-step shuffle to halfstep groove. Better still is ‘Taurean’, driven by a relentless four-to-the-floor kick and hard-edged melody that sends the synapses into hypnotic submission through repetition. Londoner Sigha treads similar territory, but his latest EP for Hotflush, Rawww, betrays its Basic Channel influence more overtly, drawn in stark shades of grayscale and bathed in blissful white noise.

Treading further into techno-crossover territory, Shackleton’s Three EPs is almost certainly destined to be one of the year’s finest albums. Released on Perlon, it sees his signature sound take ever-greater steps from the scene that spawned it, crafting in open airspace a kind of Himalayan devotional music that sound simultaneously ultra-modern and as ancient as civilization itself. After the re-release earlier this year of Harmonia and Eno’s 1976 collaborative effort, it seems pitch-perfect that a new generation of sonic explorers, Shackleton included, have been recruited to reimagine the album. His remix of ‘Sometimes In Autumn’ is as arresting as anything on Three EPs, a delicate ten-minute meditation that focuses on ever-shifting ambient texture. Appleblim & Komonazmuk’s remix of ‘By The Riverside’ is less introspective but no less cerebral, contemplative sub-bass rumble creating a framework over which slow motion Oriental melodies are stretched like canvas.

Shackleton – ‘Mountains of Ashes’

Ruaridh Law, the artist more commonly known as The Village Orchestra, has been impressively prolific this year, releasing a host of material on longtime home Highpoint Lowlife. It appears he’s saved the best for last though, with his The Starry Wisdom EP (released under nom de guerre TVO) marking a deadly six-track exploration of propulsive, spaced-out techno. Opener ‘Aklo Cut With Saffron’ gradually focuses from diffuse opening to concentrated dancefloor stomp, as though viewed through a gradually turned camera lens. By the end, its sheer feral power is worthy of a night on the tiles at Berghain – yet undercut by an almost intangible melodic drift it remains strangely stately and considered. Best of all is ‘The King In Yellow’, its perpetual-motion dynamics stained a deep, nocturnal purple. It’s available to download for free at Sonic Router.

Kieran Hebden has announced the arrival of a new Four Tet album, There Is Love In You, early next year – and from early indications, it looks set to be very special indeed. The tracks he’s been DJing recently betray a strong UK funky influence alongside the usual house, techno and jazz suspects – crystallised in new single ‘Love Cry’, which shares some genetic similarity with Hebden’s Burial collaboration, all jazzy drums and intricately sliced female vocal snippets. These suspicions are given further credence by the single’s remixers – funky don Roska and man-of-the-moment Joy Orbison, who turns the original into a peak-time explosion well worthy of the hype.

Four Tet – ‘Love Cry’

So perhaps it’s best to finish where we started then, with a look at the past and future of dubstep circa-2009. If one single event has defined the stratospheric rise of post-garage music this year, it has to have been Joy Orbison’s ‘Hyph Mngo’. Even now, several months after its release, it continues to make waves in the mainstream – with even Zane Lowe cottoning on to the Orbison vibe. In some ways the man’s set himself a tough task: how to top an almost impossibly hyped set of tracks without looking like a one-trick pony. Luckily, he’s provided an answer in the shape of the first release for his own Doldrums label, and it doesn’t disappoint. If anything, both ‘J. Doe’ and ‘BRKLN CLLN’ cement the formula he’d already perfected – aquatic, shimmering synthplay and impossibly busy house-influenced beats, all tied together with a distinctive MDMA sparkle. Happily, it’s a fantastic formula, and one that hasn’t worn thin yet; amongst the relentless darkness and claustrophobia of so many dubstep-derived musics, it’s a breath of fresh air to hear something so open, so optimistic. Perhaps the start of a new decade will herald a refreshing breeze of positivity. Admittedly, I wouldn’t count on it, but at least it’s being given a hearty kickstart.

Joy Orbison – ‘BRKLN CLLN’

More discussion, reviews and interviews around similar material, as well as links to free tracks and mixes can be found at Close Bracket/Open Bracket.

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