Bleep

Album of the Week

Bola – D.E.G.

Skam Records’ most elusive artist Bola returns with an enticing new album D.E.G. - the first movement from Darrell Fitton's near mythical project since his Kroungrine LP bowled us over a decade ago!!!

Returning to take his 'Krouning' place at the top of his native Northern city home's list of near mythical producers, Bola continues the tradition of offering up some of the greatest electronic music the world has ever seen, yet for one reason or another chooses to remain cloaked in mystery. Bola's re-emergence shows us all how they do it in the hills, placing him right at the top of the list of Mancunian sub-sonic scientists that roughly started with Martin Hannett and Spider Mike and runs through the other side of midnight studio sessions of Muslimgauze, Jega, Black Lodge, The Caretaker, N.M.B. Allstars, OGWL (more soon), HATE soundsystem and the present day new wave of meandyou, Willow and Turinn. Coming back after all these years though, Bola knocks all imitators of geo-techno electronic-fusion flying.

Every element within D.E.G. sounds perfectly placed as if it has been pored over time and time again until it is absolutely ripe, and ready to be pieced into the puzzle. This nothing-less-than perfect engineering makes D.E.G. a beautifully crafted album of sci-fi shapes that sound and feel like little else coming out of the post-late ‘90s/ early ‘00s electronica cannon.

Truly great to have the Bolaman back, one of the most mysterious yet utterly enduring electronic artists of our lifetime.

Single / EP of the Week

Burial – Subtemple / Beachfires

Burial returns to Hyperdub for a surprise two tracker of ghost hardware urban ambience and Metal Gear Solid garage. Here we find our hero returning to the rain-soaked South London boroughs from which his one-of-a-kind sound first came to fruition. Subtemple / Beachfires is sure to be William Bevan's most widely praised recording since we all fell under the angelic garage spell of Untrue, a decade ago.

On the A-Side, Subtemple deploys the inner workings of the Keysound classic 'Temple Sleeper', yet where that track spun off into a trance-inducing hardcore number, Subtemple steps deeper into the mix and comes through the other side of the dawn with echoes of the eternal classic 'Pirates' resonating through the spectral gloom, perfectly topped off with a filtered snatch of an old R&B white label dripping through the ceiling from the flat above.

On the B, Beachfires sets its way down a path of blurred memories from the rave a decade before, a howling wind blows out the last flick of the night's clipper while a rumbling bassline builds with momentum like the last night tube rumbling to a stop while you try and draw the last toke before descending down into the darkness. The end result is possibly the most vivid auto counterpoint to Burial's semi-imagined nighttime world yet.

Say what you like, but honestly, we don't really need to spell out just how good this one is.