The Answer Is In The Beat

Bogdan Raczynski: Debt EP 12″ (Unknown to the Unknown, 2020)

May 24, 2020 at 11:50 am | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

I absolutely love the fact that there’s suddenly demand for old Bogdan Raczynski material. This resurrects tracks from before he signed to Rephlex, and it’s mostly fizzy, hacked-up hardcore that could still be mixed into a techno set, but would probably make most ravers’ skin crawl. He was still leading up to the bonkers brilliance of his IDM/breakcore stuff, there’s no funny voices or mutilated breakbeats, but it’ll still make you bounce around and crash into things. Hopefully since he’s excavated so much past material, he’ll find someone willing to release his newer, modular stuff.

Addison Groove: Fred Neutron (Gutterfunk, 2020)

May 20, 2020 at 7:11 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Addison Groove’s third album is a potent soundclash which hybridizes dub, juke, breakbeat hardcore, and much more. “Bass Trips” is some steady U.K. bass pressure, with complex beats digging ever deeper. “TeknoJuke” is directly halfway between both, like a more stripped-down, pumped up “Jaguar” with a pinch of breaks thrown in. “Dreamscape 12” is sprinting breaks with a sneaking garage bassline, and “Laguna” is lush, ecstatic ambient footwork. “n(y)o͞oträn” is just as knotty as its title, while “Rale Dawomey” is an earthy flute-and-percussion track featuring Haitian musician Chouk Bwa. Near the end, “Out of Nowhere” is one of the album’s most direct doses of blissful yet melancholy atmospheric juke.

The Fear Ratio: They Can’t Be Saved (Skam, 2020)

May 18, 2020 at 8:34 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

British techno stalwarts James Ruskin and Mark Broom have been producing more broken, abstract material as The Fear Ratio for a decade now, on Ruskin’s Blueprint label as well as Manchester’s god-tier Skam. Their third album simply has all the hallmarks of classic Skam — precise, fractured rhythms, suspenseful melodies, darkness, playfulness. It’s also the type of IDM that’s danceable and not overwhelmingly dense, there’s still enough space so that you can appreciate all the details. After the sort of DJ friendly first batch of tracks, there’s a much more haunted, minimal track (“The Curse”) which is followed by the rubbery, kinetic “LM3”. The next couple tracks are closer to Skam-ified hip-hop, a heavy bounce riddled with glitches and slivered vocals. It all seems to dissemble and dissolve with the fluttering bass wash of “A406”.