- Some music feels made for semi-anonymous, hand-stamped white labels. Weevil Neighbourhood seems to have a good grip on this: its third release is every bit as faceless and aggressive as the best of the stuff. The offshoot of 2010's bass-centric Weevil Series, its latest comes from Katsunori Sawa. One half of Steven Porter, the duo who dropped a slab of swampy beats on Weevil back in 2011, he produces solo work agitated by noise and decay.
Sawa's techno is infused with a dank energy, like it's being taken over by the undergrowth with every passing bar. Static and hiss blanket the empty space, and the percussion crawls in uneven formations. More often than not the effect is tinged with horror, as with the resonant shrieks of "Augur" or the unsettling death knell of "Black Sugar." "Phenomenon" comes closest to conventional techno, but still drags its feet with every lunge. The hangover after all the curling metal carnage, "NGM" feigns resolution, punctuated by brief flashes of white noise as it slowly corrodes.
TracklistA1 Augurs
A2 Black Sugar
B1 Phenomenon
B2 NGM