- Manchester's Indigo—one half of Akkord with Synkro—makes his debut on Samurai's "deeper drum & bass" subsidiary Red Seal with what could be his best solo release yet. Storm compacts all the aspects of Liam Blackburn's musical personality into a dizzying whole. You've got the sensibility for sweeping atmospherics he shares with Synkro, the pinpoint precision of loud/silent dynamics of Akkord, and his penchant for drum & bass bangers, topped off with a dollop of jungle.
"Volta," the most impressive cut here, has the metal chords and snap-of-the-whip rhythms we know from Akkord, but replaces the techno beats with jungle breaks. "Spirit Of The Winds" holds the breaks between deeply sighing vocals, and the result—fast, shiny and inhuman—is like cybernetic jungle. There's no drop, just the endless lash of manipulated drums and a swell of dubby chords at the end. The tension is near to breaking point for the entire thing.
The title track ditches the straight-up junglisms and has more in common artists like Fracture and Om Unit, with assorted drum sounds flying at breakneck speeds but delivered with an almost dubstep-ish swing. Rounding things off is "Condition," which is more of a dub techno number, coasting along on an easygoing 4/4 pulse. Steadily cruising, it's eerie and beautiful in its own strange way.
TracklistA1 Volta
A2 Spirit Of The Winds feat. VersA
B1 Storm
B2 Condition