Low End Lowlife: 13.12.11

Ah the festive season. Everyone loves everyone that little bit more. Everyone suddenly wants to reconnect with old friends. Everyone puts on a few pounds and finds their respective partner that little bit less attractive than they did in summer. It is a time to plan for the future, to draw grand designs for the New Year, to finally tackle those projects that mean the most to you. The goals that might save your soul, provide real satisfaction. The ones your heart truly desires...

Then you realise this isn't ‘It's A Wonderful Life’, you'll never be as good a human being as James Stewart, and if you did get drunk and jump off a bridge on Christmas Eve no one would give a festive fuck, they'd just root through your record and trainer collections like pikeys at the scene of a seventeen car pile up. Alas, such is the real world! Anyway if you are going out in a ball of self loathing cowardice you might as well leave a few more audio truffles for the freeloading pigs... And here they are!

If, at a particular high point in your feeble existence, you have ever watched Rocky IV (and if you haven't chances are you were badly raised by your parents) you'll no doubt be aware that Russia is a country that specialises in following Sylvester Stallone up mountains in nondescript black European saloon cars and breeding stone-faced heartless punching machines fuelled almost exclusively on communist developed chemicals (I think the technical term is 'Commiecals') and the bench pressing of mid-price motor homes complete with combi fridge-freezers. However, if you have been lucky enough to catch the shiny new 813 EP Spectrum Riff courtesy of the good people at Donkey Pitch recently then you may, much like myself, be starting to think that Russia isn't just about bleak frosty tundra and banging vodka shots until you can't feel the numbness anymore. Indeed no, the aptly titled Spectrum Riff brings a joyous burst of day-glo colour and warm synthesizer workouts to help melt the cultural permafrost Hollywood entombed me in shortly before puberty. Opening with the energetic boogie leaning synth & siren combo of 'Firefighter' the EP doesn't let the energy slump at any stage. 'Bluebird' features some of the most uplifting harmonies you are likely to hear this year, and sat atop a warm rising bass and organic sounding cymbal crashes is guaranteed to raise the spirit over the impending festive season. 'Plumeous Bubbles' is as preposterously hectic as its name would denote, with thick swirling sub waves and tightly syncopated percussion akin to those favoured on Kuedo's tip-top Severant record, albeit filtered through a bottle of the blue Panda Pop (the flavour that wouldn't wash out). There is also, alongside 813's original version, a wondrously spaced out versioning of 'Tinky Tonk' courtesy of Ninja Tune's current star attraction Slugabed, who probably less than coincidentally was featured alongside Ghost Mutt on Donkey Pitch's debut EP Donkey Stomp back in 2010. 'Spectrum Riff' has been picking up celebrity spins all over the shop of late with the likes of Skream, Brackles & Starkey to name but three all professing a love for 813's colourful beat making. It's times like these I wish I'd actually read some books about Russia instead of just taking Red Dawn as a documentary piece. Damn you John Milius...

From one snow capped sound smith to the next, record number two this week comes from a Helsinki quartet by the name of Yöt. Dropping on the group's own Raha & Tunteet label their cheeky Bitch Bender mini album is a strange little something that takes in the slow bpm bounce of dub and reggae whilst fusing it to the heavy squelching synth styles of the boogie-fied skwee sound. Having had a previous release on Harmonia, one of the largely European influenced Skwee genres original labels, operated by genre pioneers Randy Barracuda and Mesak, you can be guaranteed a high quality, if somewhat unhinged lo-fi ride. Opening salvo 'Real Dub' is a slow rolling gem, expertly managing to mesh a distinct reggae riddim with heavily processed synth sounds without coming off sounding either tacky or too much like a gimmick. Title track 'Bitch Bender' takes a cruiser weighted sub line and peppers it with cascading bongo riffs and broad splashes of techno colour, whilst 'Man's World' builds heavy layers of sound over its first two or so minutes culminating in a dramatic flourish which then falls into a brooding skank akin to a slightly more absurd John Carpenter soundtrack. If you are not put off by the wonderfully macabre cover art of an animal with a semi-peeled skull, or have witnessed and marvelled at the music of Bernard Favre's Black Devil Disco records then I suggest you investigate the current sounds of Scandinavia.

Taking things to slightly warmer (but only just) climb next is the new Dreama EP courtesy of Brooklyn based producer Kingdom, currently affiliated with the more or less peerless Night Slugs imprint. Last heard binding a screwed Ciara vocal sample to Girl Unit's 'Every Time' to sleazy beach cruising effect the Dreama EP sees Kingdom creating more of his wholly unique, smuttily sultry R'n'B bounce. Opening jam 'Let You No' arranges pinging 808 lines, bubbling synths and operatic stabs in a precise frame and then dumps all over them with an almost bottomless set of sub thumps, expertly faded in and out around a central loop of vocal samples to create a simultaneously slow yet effortlessly danceable piece. 'Stalker Ha' carries a cinematic tension on its high pitch keys and ghostly voice haunts, but again somehow still manages to make headway to the dance floor courtesy of a staggered house rhythm which imbues the cut with a tetchy, nervous energy. Title track 'Dreama' takes a much more laidback approach and brings a psychedelic synth arpeggio to the fore creating a cruising track that would probably only ever look truly appropriate if you were low riding through a waterlogged 80's nightclub on a life support machine. True to cheeky "might not really have permission" sampling form, Kingdom has certainly kept his powder dry for the final audio assault of the record. The wonderfully monikered 'Hood By Air Theme' opens with an almost hymnal swirl of neo-gothic voice clips and tense strings, gradually layering over twinkling synths stabs and deep sub kicks. This near biblical sound collage, with an ever-building sequence of percussive claps, comes to full formation with possibly the finest vocal rip on wax right now. If you can't spot the sample by about the three and a half minute mark then you must have been missing in action when the Lord (possibly called Evolution) was distributing the eardrums. I won't spoil the fun though; it'll be a treat when you do clock it. Just think of it like an advent calendar with only one door. An abstract door... Made of sound... Alright so it's not a fucking advent calendar. Merry Christmas all. I'll be pissed in a stable smelling of faeces and Jim Beam. Just give me a shout when dinner's ready.