- Dude, I’m like so amped about this one. Dub Kult is one of those artists that kind of bubbles along just under the radar but has been putting out consistent (if sporadic) records for several years now, which all hit that sweet spot of trippiness plus danciness. And now he has his own label! And he’s really spoiling us because despite averaging one release every six months for the last few years, this comes a mere month after the excellent bassy brain-squisher ‘Cluster Fuck’ on Curle.
I’ll skip straight to the point: all four tracks on here are decent but two are excellent. ‘13th Melody’ is the one that jumps straight out because it’s got, well, a melody. And if you hadn’t guessed already from the artist’s name, he’s usually more about the beats and the bass. The aforementioned melody is a woozy undulating affair with broken arpeggios that is underpinned with just a pinch of beats and a sprinkling of bass – never too much or too little, but just enough, giving it a delightfully restrained dreaminess. Something about it just gives me a tingle in my private area.
The other standout is ‘Double Suicide’, which is totally different. It’s built around a conversation in Japanese and some straight-up kick drums which are as punchy as a Saturday night in Glasgow. This is an example of where by doing very little at all, you can build a lot of tension in a track. It constantly feels like something really nasty is gonna happen (maybe cos I watch too many Japanese horror movies) and then it breaks and the male voice echoes out all distorted and nasty sounding. Add in a few little chopped up, creepy vocal snippets and some bells and you get a track that will really violently abuse the dancefloor. In a good way.
Elsewhere, ‘One World’ and ‘13th Dub’ are nice enough with most of the signature Dub Kult touches but if you’ve already got ‘On and On’ and ‘Cluster Fuck’ they aren’t adding much that’s new.
TracklistA1 One World
A2 Double Suicide
B1 13th Dub
B2 13th Melody