Aimed at showcasing more contemporary luminaries with industrial post-techno inclinations through its own channels, England-hailing Depth.Request records presents a second installment in its tumultuous Hostile Responses & Provocations series. The digital release, in vain of previous episode, offers six cuts that vary from contemplative, ritualistic explorations to direct-drive, four-to-the-floor juggernauts, forged by different artists spread across European continent who showcase distinctly separate approach towards production and are mostly new to the label.
Sparking off in a fashion one would expect from a composition that has a latin adjective suffix for a title, Zagam's Toriam demands a bit of listeners' cerebral investment to decipher the rhythmic narration, its scattered drum patterns eclipsed by alien baying, landscapes consisting of hemidemisemiquaver-long hats, softly shrilling outbursts of digital noise that vary in intensity as well as length, and a free-roam, expect-anything approach to structure.
Introduced with intensely throbbing ocean-floor rumbling high-passed punitively to lowest ranges, Metalogue continues with More as Dust, a track that soon explodes into full spectrum and reveals itself to be a hard-pounding, cybernetic breakbeat venture that allows less and less breathing space as it moves forward via tightening arrays of kicks accompanied with occasional intrusions of twisted, wobbling synths which outgain other elements by the means of sidechaining.
Ironically enough for a tune called Crawlspace, Swarm Intelligence tears away the torch of tension and resolutely dashes with it as if there's just no fucking tomorrow; comparatively, the effect of this relentless and unsparing 4/4 stomper draws a sensation of jumping from a simmering water into a raging furnace, its vicious drums paced at 140 BPM greeting the woofers head-on while the arcs of gritty droning and armies of condensing percs join the wave until an already busy visual representation of it resembles an impenetrable wall.
Ominous, suspenseful, and resonant of sound one would expect to find on a score to a handsomely budgeted techno-thriller, majority of Second Spectre's Smuggler is set in halftime tempo, corrosive bassline and eroded toms being its main stand-outs, with choral drones, sandy hats and tumbling low-range drums adding to the portrayal of a distinctly dystopian plot with doubtful prospects of a happy ending over the sunless horizon.
Aiming to oppress from second one, Hump Shunted's say-good-bye-to-your-face attitude is achieved through Rommek's scourging, offbeat thudding sidelined only by potent and ceaseless discharge of abrasive mid-to-low scale bass, atop which two distinct layers of panning and buzzing synths fight for dominance against troubled wails of polytonal siren, stretching across mournfully, presumably in lamentation of the record's imminent end.
In what is Nigh/T\mare's culminative piece, voices from the dark, obscured and foreshadowing, pave a pathway towards Armagheddon's ruthless, apocalyptic kicks that strike indiscriminately and
stochastically; devastating the scenery in manner of four horsemen, they are accompanied by trailing aftershocks, occasional howls, fragmented whispers and enshrouding layers of imperial ambiance instilling a sense of despondency first, and soon after that, doom.
- rhetor, Aivazovsky Waves
credits
released April 28, 2021
Written and produced by ZAGAM, Metalogue, Swarm Intelligence, Second Spectre, Rommek, Nigh/T\mare.
Mastered by Alain Paul.
Artwork by Tolga Tres.
P&C 2021 Depth.Request
This hammering slab of dark techno comes to wax at last, with its deep grooves and body-wrecking beats as potent as ever. Bandcamp New & Notable Aug 3, 2020