Industrial Nation: Paradise / Brazilian Nightmare
Ad Noiseam’s knack for finding genre twisters and style fusers cannot be praised enough by me. Cdatakill’s album is once again not at all what I had expected. My acoustic imagination painted pictures of noisy, shredded, low-fi sample rage as the formerly titled CASSANDRA DATAKILL stirred quite some commotion in the breakcore scene. Instead, you get wickedly phat, slickly produced breakbeat tracks that don’t just race through the rhythms but rather brilliantly shine in mid-tempo realms. Brilliantly, because they play with different elements such as dark bass, ambient, ragamuffin, piano and strings, even flamenco guitar without sounding forced. It is a darn electrifying mix that’s been spinning on repeat at my place for the last four weeks. Resting In Paradise with its infectious MC could be prime Techno Animal material, including deep Scorn-like bass reverberation. Division sparkles with its mix of Will and Hecate. Powerlines Song combines deep bass and dark drones with piano melody, Vodka Spitter instantly fascinates with a touch of melancholy and the warm sounds it works into the matrix of shuddering drum n’ bass rhythms. Ahhhh, intelligent music can be so beautiful. Drifting atmospheres fused with the ferocity of a wild animal. It is not only the style and mood swings of the tracks which surprise, but also the remixes by Somatic Responses, Tarmvred and Detritus sprinkled amidst the track order which, while not denying thei signatures, seamlessly integrate themselves into the oscillating scope of the album. Chameleon Skin, one of the best tracks couldn’t be more aptly titled. As if this wasn’t enough, Zak Roberts again eludes my categorizing paws and presents a bonus album, the multifaceted dark ambient opus Brazilian Nightmare, finely weaving drones and noise into a whole. It flows darkly and scintillates without becoming boring, swells noisily and distorted in the middle and fades into the soft morass of drones and synthetic darkness. The reissue of this album on Eupholus was another clever decision of Ad Noiseam’s head honcho Nicolas Chevrereux. Not only because the previous CD-R edition was limited and already sold out, but because it might bring the two disparate scenes closer. The additional bonus remixes on Brazilian Nightmare by Jason Snell (Division 13), Matt Demmon and Stick prove how well the synthesis of aggressive beats and dark atmospheres works. My recommendation of this issue.
