Bleep

Blackest Ever Black's chief junglist Pessimist turns in an extended subzero excursion, picking over the bones of skeletal breakbeat and industrial techno to create the most vivid fever of what constitutes darkside drum & bass in 2017.

Captured between a slowly morphing intro and a knife-addled outro, Pessimist's debut album goes into deep waters with eight shark-like tracks circling up ahead whilst you fall to the seafloor bed of post-hardcore bassline pressure and caustic, choke hold techno-submarine-weaponry.

Having twisted our heads around with his perfectly formed A14 side, a gritty remix for Ilian Tape and the juggernaut drive of his collaborative Ruffhouse project (most notably the razor sharp warehouse battering ram that is the Straight 9's / UVB-76 12") Pessimist arrives at his debut long player with a slew of club-ready 12"s already under his belt that have shaped the current DNB scene with a precision-led focus and deep knowledge of the sharper corners of techno, yet listening to his debut the eight crushing tracks on offer truly show he has raised the bar even further than before, going in hard within the lineage of out undercover dub-techno luminaires such as Dynamo and Pendle Coven through to the mechanical Akai S5000 grind of Source Direct, Krust and Dom & Optical.

Whilst the sounds resemble a chilling crossbreed of Chain Reaction's '... Compiled' and Metalheadz 'Platinum Breakz', the drawing of influence from both techno and jungle and by slicing the key elements of both genres across an ocean of colder-than-ice DNB militarism, perfectly resembles the early '90s halcyon days where what genre your record was produced under just wasn't an option - think Kevin Saunderson making techno with mentasms or The Black Dog looping breaks over a 909.

Sick to the stomach with black and blue rollers, Pessimist channels the true spirit of the earliest incarnations of hardcore through the current state of the nation paranoia within club culture/closure to create a frozen-in-time wasteground befitting the highest ranking admiration from all jungle and techno soldiers with both feet and an ear to the (under)ground.