- BD1982's principal points of reference will be familiar to anyone following bass music's permutations of late: here we have the usual neon synth leads, bone-dry drum machines and grime-inspired clicks and gun cocks; there's even the requisite juke track, "Zero Hours," a hushed tumble of toms and whispers. But rather than another flouro knockoff—which you might expect from an artist with titles like VHS Nite—the Iron Trees EP bears more in common with extreme left-fielders like Dro Carey or the Young Echo collective. His sound is crisper and cleaner than theirs, with a brisk, determined step; it's colored with a fizzy kind of clarity that suggests Oneohtrix Point Never covering the Night Slugs crew, especially given his preference for luminous chords and hollow-sounding Juno leads.
"Zero Hours" aside, most of the record's seven original tracks slink along at sub-house tempo. "Iron Trees" lurches through swinging, skeletal electro; "Outside the Tunnel" is narcotic, broken-beat house in keeping with Pal+'s recent EP for One Eyed Jacks. The understated "Cities" pairs a sing-songy melody with scattershot hand drumming and booming syn toms, a heady example of primitivist futurism. "This Much," meanwhile, asks what would happen if Wiley ever recorded a track for one of Kompakt's Schaffelfieber compilations.
As though that weren't enough to wrap your head around, two remixes take things in still more directions. Greeen Linez' "Outside the Tunnel" remix is a slap-bass disco-funk jam that illuminates BD1982's links to the French club scene, while QOSO takes "Zero Hours" deep into Blawan's blackened territory with an overdriven techno stomp drowned in reverb.
Tracklist 01. Iron Trees
02. Outside the Tunnel
03. Cities
04. BQE At 3am
05. Zero Hours
06. Just A Rhythm
07. This Much
08. Outside The Tunnel (Greeen Linez Remix)
09. Zero Hours (Qoso Remix)