Bleep

In the current landscape there are few who can match Phase Fatale (Hayden Payne) when it comes to creating dark electronic music. The producer and Berghain resident proves this once again on Scanning Backwards, his second LP and latest drop for the Berlin club’s in-house label Ostgut Ton. Scanning Backwards expands outwards from the EBM sound that has become a staple of Payne’s more club-orientated releases, with the influence of industrial pioneers like Vatican Shadow keenly felt. Sure, there are still chugging darkside techno tracks here - ‘De-Patterning’, ‘Mass Deception’, ‘Splintered Heels’ - but these are also some of Payne’s fullest productions yet, their spaces filled with swirling atmospherics and grinding noise.