TKG003 – KUMA – OF SILENCE AND SECRECY

a) Kuma- Of Silence and Secrecy
aa1) Kuma- Of Silence and Secrecy (Flippo’s Omega Point Remix)
aa2) Abunaii- Angels (Motomasamix)

Available at:

Boomkat
Juno
Sounds Of The Universe
Cargo
Redeye
Chemical

After ten years of booking shows with the likes of Alex Paterson, Kode 9 and DJ /rupture, being the first North American booking agency to embrace dubstep and helping to pioneer modern bass culture in North America alongside Dub War, Mashit and Smog, the Konspiracy Group’s TKG Music label delivers their first vinyl release. The end result of a decades worth of sitting in the bassbins with a middle finger raised.

Following the success of Kuma’s debut 12” on Bristol’s Immerse Records, it makes sense that the first slab of wax on the TKG Music imprint should feature beats from its founder.

Recalling the shattered rhythms of early Tempa releases as much as it does the tribal atmospherics of Dead Can Dance, Of Silence and Secrecy is an ethereal floor-killer. If ever psychedelic garage was to be tossed around as a description, it’s here, as lush strings and neck snapping snares set you moving. But then again, that’s before the bass drops. When the bass kicks, its a full on future-garage excursion as tribal horns of war call the way to the dance floor. Alien voices and turntable scratches hasten the journey, but in the end, it’s the overwhelming presence of a bassline that is enough to remove the filings from your teeth and send you on your way. Paying just as much reverence to the Croydon godfathers as it does to Ivo Watts and 4AD, this is dubstep unlike anything else, born to move both the mind and the waist.

On the AA-side, Australian dubstep progeny Flippo returns to wax after his releases for Pressing Issues and Formant Recordings only to take the blueprint handed to him and burn it to ashes. Invoking the beatless garage legacy of Wiley’s Devil Mixes and Kode 9′s Sine of The Dub, he builds the track from lush, narcotic ambience into the kind of tune Godspeed You! Black Emperor would write if they ever went to FWD. A crescendo of live drums and epic swathes of distortion create a monster that both Skream and Steve Albini could love. Dubstep? Yeah, it’s dubstep, just happens to wbble different bits than usual.

Rounding out the package is Canadian house veteran Motomasa’s remix of mysterious Vancouver drum and bass duo, Abunaii. Slowing down the original drum and bass track’s metallic sonorities to a narcotic 808 led skank, these Angels end up somewhere between the Loefah’s minimalist half-step destruction and the wonky lazer bass currently being spearheaded by the like of Megasoid and Rustie. With a production background wedged deep in the hip-hop mecca’s of Detroit and Atlanta, Motomasa has turned a drum and bass nightmare into a low-slung killer, slinging distorted riffs over Miami bass and the fire and brimstone mutterings of the last man standing at the Bar.

Three tracks, one vision. When you’ve been fighting conservative thinking in electronic music for as long as we have, the weapons have to be this sharp.