- Wedge's Bristol-based If Symptoms Persist label has lately carved itself out a niche in the most paranoid corners of bass music. Following Al Tourettes' spooky and unforgettable "When I Rest I Rust" came an EP of rusty, scuzzy dubstep from the label head himself, and he follows it up with another EP, this time exploring the darker side of the so-called "post-dubstep" 2-step revival.
Wedge hasn't exactly gone "dark garage" here—these tracks don't sound like early grime or Horsepower. They're more like sleek slate grey structures drizzled with acid rain. "Reaching" cultivates this atmosphere best, where a backdrop of staticky mist and stretched, enveloping vocal samples is punctured by a precocious 2-step beat. "Eyes Closed" uses similar drum programming and takes entire sections out, creating a distorted and shattered skeleton that overheats and crackles under the pressure of snarling bass chords, while "Lost Love" has a crisp breakbeat and slams it on top of a thick slab of painstakingly developed ambience, Actress-style compression and what sounds like birdsong. With these tracks Adam Wedge has managed to find a way out of the ever-encroaching trappings of "future garage," where bright vocal samples and even brighter chords compete for the highest degree of day-glo extremity. He's done it by simply reversing its tropes, and opened things up to a whole new world of possibilities.
Tracklist 01. Eyes Closed
02. Reaching
03. Lost Love