Node goes to work on two recent Dubkraft releases...

EDOC - PARASITO EP

Spanish debutee Edoc brings together 3 tunes on this EP of glitched out, stuttering beats. On the whole the tunes are held together by a collection of muddy sub, lurching drums and strange vocoded stabs and synths. It's not necessarily easy on the ear, the feel being very down-tempo in mood and an emptiness surrounds the tunes which can be quite unsettling.

Obvious comparisons will be made to Burial's first album and also early Squarepusher and Aphex twin Experiments. Opening track 'Broken Love' is a swirling dirge of random sound as a solitary kick drum thuds it's way through proceedings, crackling atmospherics drop in and then open out, making way for a really cold synth sound as it progresses and gains more rhythm further into the track before dropping down again into bizarre synthy shifting randomness.

Definitely one for the headphones, perhaps while travelling on a train somewhere via freezing cold country.
'Always To You' continues the darked out vibes, very minimal on percussion and churning out a twisted vocoded vocal that babbles over this abstract musical canvass.
'Lastrip' has some beautiful sounding strings that break down into an incredibly complex rhythm which is still very obscure, parts of the tune halting erratically to form another beat, and all the while you get the feeling of being drowned in a dark, dark water of sound simultaneously struck through with curious electrical cracklings and chirrups.

An incredibly strange EP, that while not necessarily comes across as being a must have purchase, is definitely an intriguing prospect to be delved into by those who like their music that is genuinely insane.  

Adam John – Sugarbot
Dubkraft

Standard, half-step fodder here from veteran Adam John aka Kid Kryptic. 'Sideways Drift' boasts some big bolshy bass, glitchy little percussive snaps and a very screechy little synth lead on that 8os swing electro-swing tip, there' not much else to be said about this track, haters are gonna hate on the fact that it sounds like a lot of the generic stuff out there of recent times, the production standard is present to some extent but cynical in the extreme in it's execution.

Title track 'Sugarbot' is as far removed from the first track as can be imagined, with a very ambient feel to it reminiscent of Boards of Canada et al, but the unimaginative half-step plod is a let-down and the incredibly irritating casio keyboard lead may cause some listeners to self-harm.

What also disappoints here is that there is no change-up at all in the track and we get the same thing for 3 and a half minutes. 'Tumbleweed' has a bit more about it, with a tough set of drums, a good bit of variation so you don't lose interest and generally has a bit of a rugged feel that would be alright on the dancefloor. The bizarre computer jabberings and atmospherics are all good and so I would say this track deserves a check out of the whole of the EP.

Overall, quite a weak release from someone who has a proven record, it's not so much that the tunes are completely without merit but with such strong competition out there at the moment already all over this kind of sound these types of tunes really have to grab you by the throat to have any kind of impact. The weakness is in the variation of ideas and structure and the way the three tracks don't even hold together well as an EP. Steer clear if you have a tendency to get angry about music.

DUBKRAFT ON SOUNDCLOUD