- With releases on Fifth Wall and Resin, Cambridge's Metrist marked himself as one of the more distinctive figures in the industrial-techno wave. This release for Batu's Timedance label, under the new L.Sae alias, is his most unusual work yet. The crusty sonics and paranoid mood remain, but the evil techno churn is replaced with a kind of deconstructed electro, whose sluggish grooves are dulled and twisted until they teeter on the edge of dysfunction.
Timedance 002's major flaws are structural. Both tracks wander through a series of weird climates, often taking a few left turns on the way. Material this strange could do with being ferried more straightforwardly onto the dance floor. The failing is a shame because the strangeness is well worth experiencing. The sultry side-stick beat of "The West End As It Will Be" scuffs slowly into motion, but ham-fisted hi-hats and an acrid bass note weight it down. The sickly chords, which sometimes bathe the mix, only heighten the uneasy mood. On the flipside, "Line Sunk Like I'm Sunk" manages to be both more fractured and funkier, and it picks up a cool momentum as it goes. Judging by the cold wind howling across its surface, though, we should be in no rush to get to whatever frosty hell it's headed for.
TracklistA1 The West End As It Will Be
B1 Line Sunk Like I'm Sunk