- You have to admire artists who stick with a sound well past its heyday: they know what they like, regardless of how current it's perceived to be. Orson Sieverding is one such artist. He's been one of Germany's main outposts for bass music since 2006, when he started throwing his Version nights at Salon Des Amateurs in Düsseldorf (his first guest was Mala). He and his parties recently moved to Berlin, where he invites artists from labels like Swamp 81 and Hyperdub to play with him at OHM, a tiny, white-tiled club in the same building as Tresor. For the past few years, he's presented a stark vision of dubstep through his label, also called Version.
Version's records are neither throwbacks nor modern re-interpretations. Instead, they feel distinctly out of time. On Nucleus, Sieverding teams up with Skratch, a fellow German bass artist and resident at Version (along with Hops, a Hard Wax staff member who's also appeared on the label before). This is Version's fifth record, and its first with a 4/4 beat: the title track is a thick and heavy roller with a sinister sense of urgency. "Lights Off" is straight-up dubstep—crisp, punchy and thoroughly uncluttered, at once traditional and free of cliché. Version's past few records had a bit more personality—see White Nights or Kraut—but this still scratches the itch.
TracklistA1 Nucleus
B1 Lights Off