International ape unit Simian Steel’s first full length, a torment of mean-as-shit Sludge featuring members of Fistula and OG IxM guitarist (and current Bass player in their re-animated ranks) Steve Watson. A pitch black evocation of tar-thick criminal Sludge and Doom caste in cigarette smoke and diesel fumes. Groove-soaked, imposingly syrupy alcoholic riffs of forlorn self-loathing locked into metronomic, battering, pendulous rhythms, heavy handed and thunderous, adorned with extremely Morrow-summoning vocal exhortations, depressions and ululation, the work of under-evolved gruff bastards in thrall to the Iron masters. Caustic, thuggish and cruel. A direct comparison to another band is about as lazy as it gets, but c’mon, they’re called Simian Steel for fuck’s sake. They’re dancing around an enormous Iron Monkey effigy like the inbred tribes of Kong on skull island! And theirs is a brute, foul worship, their Sludge idol made utterly fucking ugly in their creator’s fearsome image – hideously aggressive, hormonally enraged, teeth bared and feral! A feast of mean-spirits for the terminally unemployable. For my money, a far more appealing proposition than Iron Monkey’s comeback full length.
The Last Sound is the nom de plume of Barry M, co-conspirator (with Magnetize) in Whirling Hall Of Knives, whose dissident exsanguinating techno has put the constitution of many a seasoned club-goer to the sternest test. In simple terms, WHOK rip while The Last Sound ravishes, and ‘Veered’, a previously unreleased album recorded between 2006 and 2010, documents the forging of the latter’s own distinctly less confrontational sonic identity. 9-minute scene-setter ‘Drugged On The Rugged Plain’ (no-one knows their way round an evocative title quite like TLS) captures this artful evolution in real time, morphing from tunnelling acid house to zero gravity psychedelia as gaseous whorls of synth inexorably envelop the rhythm track like a swarm of iridescent damselflies. It’s an arresting opening gambit but what follows is a transmission direct from the motherlode, nine bolts of the sweetest, sourest, most pigeonhole resistant psych-pop you’re ever likely to hear. ‘Outskirting’ seasons the cut of ‘Darklands’ era Jesus And Mary Chain with the thrust of early New Order, Barry icing the cake with a vocal so blissfully languid, it makes Kevin Shields sound like Flowdan. ‘Regenerative’, by contrast, is a gorgeous peal of peach-tinged ambience redolent of A.R. Kane at their most diaphonous, while the stunning ‘Kicked In’ flirts with both the astral and abyssal planes, a fully laden bass juggernaut ploughing full tilt into a grotto of fizzing guitar and synth. Utterly untarnished by the passage of time, ‘Veered’, offers a fascinating glimpse into the formative years of one of avant-pop’s most mercurial artists. Superb.
In anticipation of the album’s release on 22/02/24, Cruel Nature Records have kindly furnished GK with an exclusive video stream of ‘Underling’. Watch the action then head straight over to Bandcamp to grab a cassette or a digital download.
Helion Heavy Metal 7″ from England’s Heavy Sentence, co-released by Dying Victims Productions and Hackney’s own Crypt of the Wizard. 3 tracks of persecution, mayhem and hellraising, NWOBHM worship with a streak of 1st wave gloaming Black Metal spite, crusty leather and executioner’s axe. Guitars slash and chug with heaving bollocks and swagger, conjuring darkly uplifting melodies and mellifluent mean-as-fukk leads across road dog storming drunken rhythm section, smashing and battering, awesome vocal full of booze and hate, ablaze with molten boogie licks and retrogressive Hard Rock trappings. Uproarious, despoiling Heavy Metal to drink, fight and fuck to. Knife wielding hooligans, beer drinking graveyard lurkers, road warrior freaks and bastard knights, rejoice! Slash the pose, disregard the plastic retro shit and get stuck in. Heavy Sentence is the real fucken deal.
A work of low rent bulldozing passionate Gore brutality from solo project Tolerances of the Human Face In Crash Impacts, as ballardian as their name may (or may not) suggest. Massive, disgusting, moronic DI electronic Goregrind shot through with a horrid Crust influence and a loud, earscraping mix, exuding the raw stench of anti-human hatred and paradoxical low effort creative compulsion. Catchy groove soaked Bass-less crust riffs pockmark the gore drenched noise wall, crispy burned Drum sounds clatter, crash and boom, bubbling roaring tarman vocal consecrates a vile experience of underground alienation. TxOxTxHxFxIxCxI also experiments with tempo, souring into midpace sturm und drang with minimalist banger ‘Fed Their Own Brains’ and their impressive cover of D-Beat warriors Disclose’s ‘Conquest’. Bearing a striking, sickening resemblance to the various projects of A. Ringdahl or the mighty Dysmenorrheic Hemorrhage, TxOxTxHxFxIxCxI reminds the intrepid, exhausted seeker of a valuable lesson: never stop plumbing the murky depths. Unheralded excellence.
Producer Jah Warrior’s 1997 full length ‘Dub from the Heart’, a collection of devout hard as nails psychedelic Dubs from The UK, tuff deadly steppers rendered in smoky digital studio production, fired with red-edged siren, system crushing electronic sub bass haze rolling in swollen waves, and drifting electronic percussion punch echo/delayed to decay, dread digital melodica(?) flutters and floats above the miasma with Jah minded power and manifest consonance, a shade of light above the murky Bass aquatics. As a cannabinoid sidestep into the tangential, I recently played this record repeatedly whilst re-reading William Gibson’s Neuromancer for the first time in a long time, Jah Warrior’s retrofuturist hard Dub vision syncopating beautifully with the cyberpunk narrative’s storyscape. Far out. I also can’t help but quote the exceptional Rewind Forward record shop review on the digital liner – “… this is one 100% crucial documentation of Jah Warrior’s signature, dreader-than-dread UK steppers sound, deep, kind of dark and fierce, overwhelmingly bass-loaded and reverb-drenched, but still mightily uplifting, in roots reggae style and fashion.” Rock solid beginning to end. Thank you and blessings to my youngest brother for putting me on to this marvelous LP those years back, the man’s tastes and interests defy his age.
Rat Cage follow up their incendiary 2020 full length ‘Screams From The Cage’ with rancor and vim, ascending their Hardcore Punk to a plateau of powerfully potent, anthemic riff soaked perfection. An utterly head kicking, tory lumping, chainsawing cut of catchy as fukk Kang mayhem, UK 82 knuckle-up bounce and brusque, teeth rattling Mangel, D-Beat & Anarcho Punk, and Punk Rock &Roll each represented within the face smashing mace strike of desperate, furious Hardcore, a barnstorming hosanna to the dispossessed and downtrodden inmates of brexit Britain, terrified drunken rats with callous smirks in the fukking pit of despair. Darkly anthemic throttling chords and soaring, brazen, blazing 4 note blues crusted leads slammed out with murderous intent, wallowing in thuggish harrying melody, a torrent of saturated drums leaping from fast to fucking fast to doomed plod to stomping mid-paced tumble enmangled with total bulldozer mid bloody Bass, and full throated super pissed violent vocal outcry, a voice of wounded despondence and outrage amidst the fire sale capitalist meltdown of england’s post tory social abattoir. ‘Savage Visions’ careens from fist banging Punk Rock chorus consonance to blank eyed Hardcore chord wall with the verve and swagger of champions, an indispensable masterwork of modern Hardcore Punk. This is England ’23.
If dub-centric music is heading anywhere in 2023, it’s to the earth’s core. Recent releases by such extremist dreadmongers as Sightless Pit, Gorgonn and The Blood Of Heroes suggest the quest to reach the very bottom of the sinkhole, to excavate until rock gives way to magma, is nearing an apocalyptic conclusion. An apposite moment then for serial noise terrorists Andrew Nolan and God Is War to disgorge their debut collaborative album, a confluence of warped minds that harnesses the menace inherent in hip-hop and dubstep and inflates it to Brobdingnagian size. Grinding inexorably through the gears like a meths-powered half-track, ‘The Hunt’ is a fearsomely exacting show of low end strength, every neck-snapping beat and bass tremor pre-marinated in a tank of liquid hostility to maximise its potential for destruction. Killer outweights filler 10 – 0, but first among equals is the sumptuously concussive title track, a slow motion punishment beating ramped up in intensity by a fragmentation grenade of baleful bars courtesy of lava-spitting No Face Krew lynchpin New Villain. Such is its potency, it’s hard not to wish Nolan and GIW had engaged the services of a few more dissident voices to flesh out the feature count, but minor quibbles aside, ‘The Hunt’ is business end belligerence in excelsis and a crucial transmission from dub’s point of no return. Going, going, GONE.
A prime mover in the resurgence of cassette culture, Newcastle-based imprint Cruel Nature boasts a catalogue of near unrivalled sonic eclecticism and its commitment to championing outsider music is nowhere better exemplified than on ‘Spectrum’, a gem-studded 23-track anthology compiled to mark the label’s 10th anniversary. Featuring artists drawn from an enviably deep talent pool and sequenced like the tasting menu of a cutting-edge restaurant, the album bodyswerves through a plethora of contrasting styles without once losing focus, highlights arriving thick and fast throughout its marathon 110-minute runtime. In the banger camp, VHS¥DEATH’S ‘Sacrifice’ is a hard-charging, Berghain-ready headrush, whilst the vertiginous ‘Nu-shunting’ by GK favourites Whirling Hall Of Knives, splits industrial techno’s atom sending quarks and gluons of percussive fallout skittering across the dancefloor. Otherworldliness abounds here too. The Durutti Column-gone-slowcore filigree of Charlie Butler’s sepia-tinted ‘Eagle’s Splendour’ is a transport of introspective delight but Dublin-based experimentalist Katie Gerardine O’Neill steals the strangeness show and then some with ‘Along The Shoreline’, a mind-warping odyssey into deconstructed chamber jazz that dazes and confuses in equally large measure. Elsewhere though, far darker forces are at work. ‘I Have Cherished Our Season Of Friendship’ from Esmé Lousie Newman’s Petrine Cross project is doom-laden ambient black metal at its most balefully cinematic and if blunt force trauma lights your candle, Lovely Wife’s bass-heavy sludge blowout ‘Letting Go’ delivers its payload with all the subtlety of a backstreet kneecapping. Packed sardine-tight with brilliance, and with all profits going to youth autism charity The Toby Henderson Trust, ‘Spectrum’ offers an unmissable glimpse into Cruel Nature’s singular soundworld. Here’s to the next 10 years.
Newcastle’s storied underground imprint Cruel Nature is celebrating its 10th anniversary with the release of ‘Spectrum’, a 23-track charity compilation that highlights precisely why the label has become a byword for sonic diversity. No better time then for a chat with ever generous founder Steve Strode.
First of all, congratulations on reaching your 10th anniversary. Could you tell us something about your background in music and how Cruel Nature first came into being.
Thank you very much!
My background in music started in my early childhood. My parents enjoy music and records were played a lot at home; mainly old rock n roll, Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, all sounds which I love today. My dad saw Eddie Cochran’s last ever gig at the Bristol Hippodrome in 1960. Aside from a couple of 7s, there were no Beatles in the house; although there was an album of a session band doing Beatles covers, and throughout my childhood I thought they were the Beatles. When Elvis died in 1977, my auntie came over to the house and Elvis records were played all day well into the night. When John Lennon died in 1980, the Beatles session band covers album was played. Which is both amusing and strange. Recognising and remembering John Lennon by playing his music performed by a fake John Lennon. I don’t think my parents cared for the Beatles much really. I remember my uncle playing me T Rex singles when I was a child, although it could be the fact that they were named after a dinosaur which was the main attraction there.
I was in primary school when punk entered my world. For some reason, we always used to listen to Radio Luxembourg on a little transistor radio when on family caravan holidays, and I recall hearing The Clash and others played during the summer holidays. It was the very late 70s when I started wanting my own records and still under the influence of punk, I asked my mum to buy me Never Mind The Bollocks, which of course with a title like that she refused. So, I got Parallel Lines as a consolation, which I find a better album. I still have that original copy from 1978. After that I got into the 2-Tone movement, then The Cure, Joy Division, The Birthday Party and so on. I was also a goth for a bit. But it was the Jesus and Mary Chain who influenced me to form my first band and play my first gigs when barely out of high school, leading to more bands, gigs etc.
At various points, I’d have several music ventures on the go. Playing in bands; putting on gigs; running a tape distro; publishing a short-lived zine with my mate Paul, that my mum used to duplicate for me on the photocopier at my old primary school, where she worked. We’d then sell it at gigs and through Revolver Records in Bristol. It ran to three issues, although issue three never went to print, even though it had a Big Black interview and a feature on The Ex in it. I don’t recall why. Maybe the photocopier had broken. Or mum was found out. Family has played a supportive part in my creative vocations, and it still does today.
As has been mentioned elsewhere, I formed Distraction Records with Darren Hubbard in 2002, releasing vinyl and putting on events. I don’t think Cruel Nature would exist without that experience and the subsequent involvement and collaboration with global labels and artists via MySpace, music forum / boards in the mid-2000s.
About three years ago, I watched a programme on the art of Japanese cherry blossom gardens. The dedication and commitment that goes into creating these horticultural wonders, often involving individuals solely focusing on one task (picking certain buds off, so the blossom grows according to the required aesthetic, for example), developing and excelling at it for many years, with a Zen stoicism.
This got me thinking about the activities I was pursuing at the time, trying to balance playing in a band, doing gigs, and running the label alongside the priorities of day job and family, which were all becoming very challenging to sustain.
With that in mind, after almost three decades of pursuing many music ventures simultaneously, taking a steer from the art of Japanese gardening, the only music vocation I am now dedicating my focus to, is the label and the curation of sounds that support it.
Cruel Nature has one of the most eclectic catalogues of any independent record label. Was sonic diversity part of your original vision?
Absolutely. In the very early days, it was coming from a left-field, experimental and sometimes extreme angle which has softened over the years, but if you look at the first three releases: you have industrial dark ambient soundscapes, post-punk / no-wave, and harsh noise wall, so it was already crossing genres. That’s how I’ve always worked. The Distraction Records catalogue was eclectic and it’s reflective of my own eclectic taste. When listening to music at home and when I used to DJ in the late 90s / early 00s, the selections will go from dub to funk to techno to punk and then pop in a matter of minutes. It’s that mix tape mentality, when you’d pull together a collection of random sounds for someone, with the sole message being ‘you gotta hear this!’
Cruel Nature specialises in limited edition cassettes. Why that particular format rather than vinyl or CD?
We have released some CDs and vinyl (mainly as made-to-order lathe cuts), to compliment the cassette releases, but from the outset, the label was established with cassettes as the format of choice. Cassettes are what I grew up with. Making tapes of tracks recorded off the radio, John Peel’s Festive 50 was great for that. All the band demos and my own sonic tinkering, all recorded straight to tape. Recording gigs of bands. Running a tape distro. Long before CDs, downloads etc, cassette was the only physical format for people to get their sounds out without having to take the big risk of shelling out on expensive vinyl. And arguably it still is. The DIY community thrives through cassettes. You buy one at a gig; it slips nicely in your pocket. Portability. Cassettes are DIY. The cassette is there in the mosh-pit or at some 10 band bring your own drink, pass the bucket around for donations, gig in a rehearsal space, the backroom of a pub, a community centre. Cassettes are punk.
Through running Distraction Records, I learned about the restrictions and constraints imposed financially through being mainly vinyl based. The basis behind Cruel Nature is to provide a platform for new artists, irrespective of location or genre. I can’t really fulfil that mission with vinyl and such an eclectic catalogue. Cassettes give me more freedom to take risks with the sounds I’m publishing, and you still get the warm analogue organic feeling that you do with vinyl, along with the ability to be creative with the packaging, so overall a perfect work of art.
For the first 3 years, the label was 100% DIY. All the cassette releases were home-produced. I moved to pro-production due to time constraints and a desire to improve the quality of the releases, along with wanting to give better art and packaging options to the artist.
Of the many tapes you’ve released over the last 10 years, do you have any favourites?
I can’t really say. It’s like asking if I have a favourite child. They’re all loved equally for their own individual special ways. But if I need to call out some for significance, then At The Heart Of All ‘Cotard’s EP’ will be an obvious choice as it’s the first-born, the tape that launched the label. The one that I started the Cruel Nature learning experience and journey with. ATHOIA were from Bristol, and I’d been speaking to Aaron from the band for maybe a year before the tape came out. We’d been collaborating on some sounds before I’d considered starting the label. It was the only release I did for them. The band ceased a little while later. Aaron is now an artist and did the amazing artwork for the ‘Spectrum’ compilation.
Mirrored Lips ‘были у меня длинные волосы, но разве они принесли мне счастье’ I was introduced to Russia’s Mirrored Lips in 2016 via an email from Sasha, asking if I’d like to publish an album for them. I checked out their Bandcamp and what I heard just blew me away. Off-kilter improvised free-form no-wave noise-punk, that had a sense of urgency that just commanded your attention. In October that year I released the album ‘MOM’, their first UK release. We corresponded a lot and started talking about arranging a UK tour and by March 2017, I’d booked a 7-date tour, across the north and south of England, accompanying them along the way. They were so good live. Amazing stage presence, such intense performances, drawing in and captivating audiences everywhere they went. While here, they checked into Gateshead’s Sound Rooms and recorded ‘были у меня длинные волосы, но разве они принесли мне счастье’. It was a studio live recording of the set they were playing on tour. Released in June 2017, for me that tape represents Mirrored Lips at their peak.
Being one of the labels involved with last year’s release of Nadja ‘Labyrinthine’ was a pleasure. I’d worked with Aidan on a couple of solo albums previously and was asked to handle the UK cassette release for Nadja. It was a good demonstration of how several global labels can come together and work collaboratively on a single release, each bringing their own stamp through individual artwork and presentation.
In the same vein, after working with David Colohan on a number of solo releases since 2015, it was an honour to pick up the cassette release of United Bible Studies ‘Return Of The Rivers’ last year.
I have solo works for Aidan and David in the schedule for this year, but it’ll be great to work with both Nadja and UBS again.
‘Spectrum’, your mammoth 23-track 10th anniversary compilation, has just been released. Could you tell us something about it and how you approached the process of track selection.
Whilst daunting at the outset, I did follow a process to select the artists involved. This was based on those who are still active; those I had worked with on many releases; those whose work had a significant impact on me; and then an overall sonic cohesion. The original list was more than twice the size of the final 23 so would’ve been a box set if I included everyone. The tracks provided were all at the artist’s discretion. There was a limit on duration, and they needed to be exclusive. Aside from that there were no restrictions.
The other aspect of the compilation is that all proceeds from the release are going to The Toby Henderson Trust, an independently funded charity in North East England which supports autistic youth and adults, as well as their families and caregivers. My son Davy – who is the same age as the label – is autistic with ADHD, so I have a close connection to the challenges faced by affected individuals and their families and understand the importance of the support that charities like TTHT give.
Since initiating the compilation, some of the artists involved and supporters of Cruel Nature, have highlighted their own connections with neurodiversity, either personally, through family or providing support, so it’s good that it is also raising awareness and getting people talking about the subject.
Looking forward, are there any artists you’re keen to add to the Cruel Nature roster, and how do you see the label progressing?
I have a steady stream of submissions and a growing release schedule, with this year already almost booked out, so we’re continuing at a prolific rate. Time constraints mean that occasionally I do miss an opportunity with submissions, but I always endeavour to listen to everything, and if the content of the accompanying note grabs my attention, then I’ll jump right in. Sometimes, a conversation might start with someone about releasing something and it can take a couple of years or more before anything is published. Katie Gerardine O’Neill is a good example. It was the start of 2021 when we first spoke about possibly working together and it was 2 years later when I published ‘Into The Beyond’. I don’t push or pressure artists. Everything must proceed at their pace, ‘don’t worry, there’s no rush’ is a stock phrase. It’ll happen when it’s meant to happen. Equally, I respect the patience of the artists, as with a busy schedule, it can sometimes take months for work to be published.
There have also been times when albums have been submitted, artwork produced and then not actually released as the artist has withdrawn the work. With Chihuahua, their amazing album ‘Crythor Du’ was released, and the band split up 9 days later! A big shame as they were excellent. I’m glad I managed to get the album published before the split.
In the next few months, there will be material from Pound Land, Tunnels Of Āh, Aidan Baker, David Colohan, Clara Engel and Charlie Butler; along with Gvantsa Narim, who produces amazing emotive electronic ambient soundscapes inspired by religion, esotericism and Georgian polyphonic music. We’re also welcoming Waterflower to the Cruel Nature roster. A Latvian artist merging interdisciplinary performance with a fusion of art pop, experimental noise, avant-garde, and ethereal melody. There’s also the debut from Tyneside based Dissociative Identity Quartet, who produce enigmatic minimalist techno and a singles collection from frenetic Leeds post-punkers, Volk Soup.
I’m also keen to publish some more work from Tibshelf, aka Lee Etherington, the man who established Newcastle’s Tusk festival. His debut ‘Supreme Flounder’ is plunderphonic heaven, cutting and pasting all kinds of samples into mind-bending sound collages. Funk, hip-hop, techno, ambient, soul, it all gets thrown in the mix and along with Summer Night Air’s ‘5’, is another example of Cruel Nature pushing the boundaries of sonic diversity.
There’s plenty to get excited about!
‘Spectrum’ is available now from Bandcamp as a limited edition double cassette and digital download. All proceeds will be donated to the Toby Henderson Trust, an independently funded charity in North East England which supports autistic youth and young adults together with their families and caregivers.
Avon Terror Corps affiliates Clíona Ní Laoi and Max Kelan Pearce, aka Salac, are going down in unrighteous flames. Forged in the decelerating isolation of lockdown, the duo’s third and apparently final album is a grievous abrasion, the grim soot-blackened churn of their previous two outings taken to its (patho)logical extreme. As demises go, it’s about as ugly as it gets. Eschewing industrial music’s more frenetic tendencies, ‘Buried’ obliterates at the sluggish yet inexorable pace of an oil slick, filling every crevice of headspace with thick sulphuric slurry to which resistance is futility defined. Catastrophically mistitled opener ‘Elixir Of Life’ serves immediate notice of the horrors to come. Ballasting mephitic squalls of bass distortion with an injuriously colossal kick drum, it seems purpose built to target the pain receptors, a supposition reinforced by the agonised screams that circle just within earshot on the track’s greasy periphery. ‘Unforeseen Demise’ is similarly pitiless, its rust-sloughing grind accentuated by a diseased polemic from Pearce who hectors into the void like a cyborg street philosopher with seconds left to live. Think a doomed Psychic Graveyard stripped of their smirks and you’re on roughly the same cancer ward as this cadaverous creation. Ni Laoi, by constrast, is a specialist in juxtaposing the ghostly with the ghastly. On ‘Bask’, her narcotic siren song is the winding sheet around an egregiously overdriven bassline, whilst ‘Caoin’ is an ambient dream turned nightmare, the plaintive lament of a seraph tapped forever in the fetid confines of a sulphur mine. Salac have checked out with a seismic death rattle. Buried? You will be.
A highly anticipated debut project from one of drill’s most exciting upcoming artists this past year. Chinx has sort of acted as the main antagonist to Suspect, with Chinx rebutting claims from Suspects songs, re-using Suspect’s song titles as disses and by pointing out that actually, Suspects gang has suffered quite a few losses as well. The most well knownincident being Suspects friend known as Blitz getting shot in the head with a shotgun by Chinx himself several years ago.
It also certainly didn’t help that Suspect went to jail right after Chinx burst onto the scene in January of 2022. Since Suspect hastily released his (incredible) album after his arrest, Chinx has pretty much had a free shot at telling his side of the story now that his main rivals were either in jail (Suspect, Broadday) or relatively inactive in music (T.Scam, Strika). This on top of his obvious talent allowed him to quickly make his way to being an established name in the drill scene in 2022.
Which, after several hard-hitting singles this past year, brings us to his debut project, which in my opinion has his best qualities on display. At the same time, it also suffers from several pitfalls that are often observed on the debut projects of an artist who is highly praised for the quality on display on their singles.
By now, Chinx’ sound is pretty familiar to me and it just doesn’t have the versatility to keep things interesting for 47 minutes with only three features, which are all bundled up on one song. The bangers certainly bang, but the few introspective/romantic-ish cuts near the middle of the tracklist are not enough to keep things intriguing to me. The few slower songs, while lyrically they do show a bare-minimum level of variety to Chinx’ personality, musically they don’t quite hit the spot. The track Imaginary Girl, where he raps about the kind of girl he’d like to be with, loses a lot of its meaning when a few tracks later we hear him say he doesn’t need a girl.
I know it’s wrong to compare this project to Suspects debut from last year, since they’re very much each their own artist. However, one can’t help but appreciate the effort Suspect put into making his album sound like a cohesive project rather than a collection of songs. A handful of features also would have gone a long way when it comes to keeping things interesting, especially with how limiting the genre of drill can be in terms of variety.
That aside, the tracks that are on here are for the most part on par with the quality people have come to expect of Chinx. He absolutely delivers in terms of his bars, flows, delivery and beat selection. Most of the songs on here would work excellently as singles, which I think Chinx realized too since almost half of the tracks on here were released as singles before the project dropped. Secrets Not Safe, Mucky, Dinga, Levels, Fish O Filet, What I Mean stand out the most for being the bangers that they are. I must give a special shoutout to One Style, which to me is the absolute highlight in the tracklist. I can’t help but compare it to one of those group projects where everyone pulled their weight, including producers JJBeatz and Ron. The crushing bass along with the haunting vocal and piano melodies make for a perfect backdrop for the quartet of rappers RO, Chinx, Fiz and R1 to deliver cold blooded bars over.
While this project has a lot of great qualities on display, most of these do not include the ability to make for a consistently enjoyable project. I’m still however very much a Chinx fan and greatly enjoyed what he did on the vast majority of these songs. I hope this won’t be his last project, especially considering how rare full length projects are in the UK Drill scene. Chinx is a rapper far above average and album-making capabilities aside, he’s certainly shown his talent on One Sided Story and it deserves the attention.
Essential double header that unites the prodigious talents of Irish underground legend Alan O’Boyle, aka Of One, and mercurial noiseniks Whirling Hall Of Knives for two epic excursions through electronic music’s storm-lashed hinterlands where the usual rules of engagement are broken with gleeful impunity. Of One fires the first broadside with ‘Recoil’, a menacing deep techno leviathan that pivots around the most incendiary acid line since Barnt’s remix of C.P.I.’s ‘Proceso’. Burrowing through a thick loam of distortion and bass viscera like the Graboid from Tremors, it periodically breaks cover to snap its scabrous jaws, spatters of caustic 303 eating away at the track’s juddering wheelbase until it comes perilously close to disintegrating. It’s a face-chewing monster of a tune that simply begs to be cranked through a skyscraper-high system, but no less formidable is WHOK’s astonishing ‘Greywash’, the sonic equivalent of a malign Lovecraftian cryptid with more tentacles than an octopus farm. For the first half of its 15-minute runtime a fractured rhythm is slowly strangled to death by thistly creepers of static like Skee Mask getting out-jammed by Rafael Anton Irisarri. Almost without warning the chokehold is broken by a skyrocketing blast of superheated Galaxian-esque electro before a plangent ambient coda irradiates the soundfield and silence finally descends. So good it should probably be illegal. Indulge.
Collaborative work between Grime OG Flowdan and sound architect Abstrakt Sonance, released in 2020. 4 tracks of mean, gritty outsider Electronics arrangement draped in Grime camouflage urban commando style, replete with dark concepts and murderous bars care of the don Flowdan, shelling down as impressively and imperiously as ever. His presence is both menacing and mercurial, drawing you in to the music like the pull of a black hole, up at front of the productions you can feel the grit and purr of his low vocal expression drawing you closer. Moody, murky mid-paced instrumentals getting merky with eastern Biwas, beds of swollen strings cut into neoclassical refrains and lurking swells of Bass, bursting shuffle of beats building to complex patterns, shifting audial and volume frequencies which at times resemble modular synthesis processes, walking a path between smoked out head-nod chill and chilly head-spinning experimentation. Forward thinking, highly evolved and proper dangerous.
The notoriety of Bristolian technopunks Giant Swan stems largely from their apocalyptic live shows, but their studio work scarcely marks them out as shrinking violets. Atypically, the duo’s latest EP targets the dancefloor rather than the padded cell, though it would be a mistake to assume the dearth of redlining discord equates to a Swan with clipped wings. ‘Fantasy Food’ may be leaner, cleaner fare than the dungeon-dragging likes of ‘Do Not Be Afraid Of Tenderness’, but it still packs a ferocious punch. Audio-terror notwithstanding, attention to detail has long been a Giant Swan hallmark and their finely whorled fingerprints cover every burnished surface of this blistering record. Take ‘Sugar And Air’ in which an onslaught of woody kicks and serrated hi-hats vie for attention with a hyperventilating female vocal sample that backflips through the clangour like a gymnast in a breaker’s yard. In unsteadier hands, such anarchic sound design could easily descend into slapstick, but every haymaker thrown here lands with pinpoint precision. Likewise, ‘RRR+1’ is a laser-guided buzzbomb that cycles through multiple overlapping phases, its concrete-cracking 4/4 beat the only constant amid a sandstorm of whipping digital detritus. Even the beatless title track, which on first pass sounds like a skipload of euphoniums being fed through a woodchipper, is a mini-masterpiece of tightly controlled chaos. Closer to the rambunctious mischief-making of Pariah and Gesloten Cirkel than the grit ‘n’ girders pile-driving of JK Flesh and Regis, ‘Fantasy Food’ is full-tilt techno with a lascivious twinkle in its eye. Dance, motherfuckers.
Santaka is the lockdown-birthed brainchild of Lithuanian drummer Marijus Aleksa and producer/DJ Manfredas whose symbiotic fusioneering expertise has resulted in one of 2022’s most audacious sonic statements. ‘No Rivers Here’ offers jazz without parameters, a fact writ vast by the undulating topography of the title track, a lurid, psychogenic shiver-fest that treads the path of most resistance for 18 breathtaking minutes. Alchemically concocted from aquaplaning percussion, pungent squalls of synth reflux, and a propulsive, slasher flick bassline, it has as much in common with Can and rRoxymore as Miles Davis and Sun Ra, which for those of us in the purist-baiting community, is A Very Good Thing Indeed. ‘555’ brings the low end into even sharper focus, dub-modulated congas and hi-hats swarming like bees around a honeypot of rapidly congealing sax. Unstable as neat nitroglycerine, it’s a potent intoxicant, but better still is ‘Opening Chasms (In Four Parts)’ which assembles a quadridimensional Rube Goldberg contraption from woodwind, brass and hand-drums that bears favourable comparison with Shackleton & Zimpel’s far-flung ‘Primal Forms’ and the Kryptox school of krautjazz outernationalism. Santaka are playing with divine fire here and to describe ‘No More Rivers’ as head-wrecking would be a galaxy class understatement. Fill yer boots.
Mystique-shrouded entity Triple Darkness is the UK hip-hop collective by which all others must be judged; a multi-tongued, fire-spitting superorganism whose infrequent but game-changing records account for some of the most uncompromising, politically charged transmissions in the whole of rap music’s storied canon. The long-anticipated follow-up to 2015’s volcanic ‘Darker Than Black’, ‘Kurayami’ levels a devastating polemical broadside at both the perpetuators of racism and their slave-trading antecedents whose subjugation of Black people laid the grisly groundwork for centuries of all-pervasive bigotry and scapegoating. Soundtracked by some of the steeliest boom-bap this side of Mobb Deep and boasting a 9-strong company of spitting talent that includes such heavyweight lyrical luminaries as Ramson Badbonez, Tesla’s Ghost and Ray Vendetta, TD offer the ultimate in art as weapon, unleashing bar upon scalpel-sharp bar of instantly quotable rhetoric that pinpoints then annihilates its targets with unerring precision. Don’t get the idea though that this is all napalm without nuance. ‘Kurayami’ is littered with moments of near-unbearable poignancy, Cyrus Malachi’s gut-wrenching soliloquy on the dehumanising grind of racism that closes out the incredible ‘Wolfsbane’ being but one example. Corundum-hard and addictive as an opium-laced Sachertorte, ‘Kurayami’ simply slaughters the opposition and those of us afforded gratuitous societal privilege just by dint of our white skin should shut the fuck up and listen as a matter of paramount urgency. Staggering.
Any person who’s talked to me these past two years knows how much of an obsession UK Drill has been. To me it’s probably the most exciting subgenre of hip-hop to catch a wave in recent times. The major aspect about it that deserves acknowledgement is the fact it’s a genre that got picked up, given a different spin on and executed by kids and teenagers from the streets of London. Whereas hip-hop and its subgenres that gained popularity in the past have mostly come out of the USA, UK Drill is really something that belongs to the UK. And its influence only keeps growing.
There’s already been so much digital ink spilled to simply explain what the genre is, so I’ll keep that part short. Drill is a subgenre of hip-hop that originated in Chicago, popularized by artists like Chief Keef in the early 2010s. Hip-hop has never been a stranger to featuring violent themes in its lyrics, but these artists kicked it up another notch by rapping pretty much exclusively about gang violence. The dark and ruthless sound quickly spread all over the States and to the rest of the world. Since then, drill rappers and producers from (mainly) London have turned the sound into one of their own, both in sound and lyrical content. Drill rappers from the USA mostly rap about carrying firearms. While these are still used and all over the place in the UK, they are very much illegal, which means gang members often tend to go with the “safer” option of carrying knives instead.
In an effort to both keep the aforementioned growing influence going and to be somewhat original, this post is not going to be a list of songs or facts you *need* to know, since there’s so little room for creativity in a write-up like that. Rather, the rest of this post is going to focus on lesser-known songs from nonetheless well-established artists within the genre, with a bit of background to make sure I’m still hitting my word count (kidding).
Lil S x JMash x MJ x Earna – Normal Procedure
There are a lot of drill songs where it is quite obvious the artist(s) involved don’t really care to make a musical statement or even a quality song. This was especially common in the early days where there was not yet much of a chance to find fame or money in the genre. In those instances the “song” was purely about sending a message to rival gang members; to boast about violence, to make threats or to make fun of deceased rivals.
‘Normal Procedure’ loses none of that violent energy while perfectly channeling it into a fast-paced, aggressive and dynamic song with rude disses, catchy flows and memorable bars. Every artist was pretty much a newcomer to the drill scene when this song dropped in late 2020, which only makes this powerhouse of a posse cut all the more impressive.
Armz – Slide First
Woodgreen’s young Armz as of right now is still fairly new to the rapping thing, with this only being his third official song. You certainly wouldn’t say so; starting at his excellent beat selection, it only gets better once his fiery delivery and rapid flows are on full display. Even on the hook Armz doesn’t allow himself a break. Anytime it comes on it feels like the highly anticipated climax after all the speed he built up in the verses.
Suspect – Covid
“Sample drill” is a term that’s been floating around for a bit, referring to drill songs on which the instrumental samples an often high pitched or cartoony vocal chop from a popular song, a videogame soundtrack or another source. Its “merit” within the context of the drill genre has been highly debated, as its often goofy and playful sound takes away a lot of the brutality that drill first became known and loved for.
Suspect shows that when it’s done right, it’s done right. He delivers funny and clever bars over a high-pitched vocal sample beat while still sticking to the dark and violent style him and UK Drill as a whole became popular for.
Lil Krafty x BroadayYay – BOOM
South Side Kilburn has long been an underrated gang in the drill scene. The beat on this (crafted by Saint Cardona) alone is such an impressively multi-faceted piece of music, and the way Lil Krafty floats over it with confident boasts and detailed descriptions of violent attacks proves you don’t need an aggressive delivery to come off as convincing.
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That’s all for now, though I’m very keen on sharing more songs, information and background in the future. I tweet quite a bit about drill on my Twitter, so feel free to hit me up if your interest is at all sparked. – @CaughtInDaRain
A beastly 12″ from the devilish Enduser, released on Painfree Sound in 2005 – a dominating cut of pussy killer Breakcore shock and awe. Jungle breaks skitter in terror as the tension mounts in fervent spiking samples and shifter vacuumed Bass collisions cut to fuck, stepping with swagger and running a burly groove across a gamut of burly breakbeats to devastating head wreck effect, baked into big, fat, fukked up production. The vocal toaster sample is particularly well picked, hyped, damaging and pants-pissingly aggressive. Danceable and destroying in equal measure, like Breakcore should be. Enduser’s Bandcamp page is stacked with releases from across his discography, be sure to spend some time perusing his various wares – that’s how I stumbled across this one. Fucken arse burner!
It may seem counterintuitive, but the closer music approximates to silence, the more forceful its likely impact. It’s a fact plainly not lost on Chicago-based duo Cleared whose breathtaking new album is the turbid, thrice-distilled essence of quietude, an inchoate foam of dimensionless un-sound that enters via the pores rather than the auditory canal. At a considerable stretch, one COULD argue ‘Of Endless Light’ falls within the parameters of dub techno, but only by implication, its signature rhythm-centric sparsity smeared and splayed to the very brink of breakdown. Proceedings commence with the ultra-refracted blur of ‘First Sleep’ which crests the horizon like a gust of smog across moonlit moorland. Fragments of wounded melody bleed through the blanketing static until decomposition inevitably sets in and the track slowly expires to a mo(u)rning chorus of axes being sharpened on a distant grindstone. By contrast, ‘Pulse’, ‘Dawn’ and ‘Waking Field’ are gorgeously eroded simulacra of Chain Reaction-esque avant-minimalism, dance music passed through a fine-mesh sieve to remove almost every joule of kinetic energy. Kick drums – or rather the muted metronomic clicks that pass for them – are so subsumed by grainy swathes of ambience, they barely register as rhythm. The album’s piéce de rèsistance though is the stunning ‘Blue Drift’, a darkening pall of drone and reverberant carillon bells that rivals Sarah Davachi’s ‘Hall Of Mirrors’ for stentorian solemnity. Step inside; the silence is DEAFENING.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a gutful and a half of the oleaginous flagshaggery that’s been clogging the arteries of this blighted nation since a certain overprivileged nonagenarian turned up her toes. Sanctuary from the forces of the fawning is urgently required and who better to provide it than ex-Napalm Death drummer and iron-fisted ringmaster of Circus Dubquake, Mick Harris. A timely reactivation of his fearsome Fret alias, ‘Because Of The Weak’ is industrial techno armed to the teeth and with mayhem in mind; a shockingly graphic illustration of man’s inhumanity to machine with little apparent purpose other than to destroy and be destroyed. Imagine the breakbeat-strewn arrhythmia of Skee Mask or the Zenker Brothers fermented and condensed to a toxic black magma and you’re in the vague vicinity of this mile-deep bomb crater, but the severity of the punishment Harris metes out here has precious few parallels. The menacing tone of track titles like ‘20oz Gripper’ and ‘Shut That Dog Up’ is reflected in the music’s withering hostility. Asteroid-sized kicks and breaks smash through ramparts of chest-crushing bass like boulders launched from a trebuchet, parabolas of ionised dub and hi-hat hiss glowing blood red in the fallout. Released via New York’s L.I.E.S. imprint whose roster of sickos and seditionists have long plied their trade at the seedier end of the hardcore continuum, ‘Because Of The Weak’ melts down techno’s hedonistic throne and recasts it into stun grenades. Obscenely wealthy monarchs, consider yourselves warned.
GonzoKaraoke 