Bleep

Following cuts for the shadowy Horizontal Ground imprint, a long player for Downwards, and a recent killer 12" for James Ruskin's Blueprint, Salford surrealist, now based in Berlin, Samuel Kerridge launches his freshly minted Contort label with wife Hayley. This follows a series of parties in the German capital the husband and wife duo have curated over recent years, putting on everyone from Regis & Covered In Sand to Dalglish & Bill Kouligas. With a new album of industrial-strength drone metal x techno variations, 'Always Offended Never Ashamed' comes across like the best elements of that recent Scott Walker & Sunn O))) LP, the Blackest Ever productions of Raime, and the late night ambience surrounding Shifted. The biggest element to change since his Downwards album debut is the use of his own vocals throughout the mix, sounding like Philip Best's Consumer Electronics vox slowed down to a crawl, the LP is a mixture of nightmarish cyberpunk dystopian techno, all expertly produced with a tongue-in-cheek humor and a nod to the Salfordian post-punk past of Kerridge's hometown in (near) Manchester.