Low End Lowlife: 10.01.12

Another year upon us. Another year to further yourself, to become more than the some of your parts. To focus on your true goals... And neglect to do anything to achieve them after about mid-February when that well of new year discipline has thoroughly run dry. Another year consigned to shitty panel shows where wankers like Russell Howard disappear up their own arseholes talking about Lady Gaga's meat dress and how it's a metaphor for the butchered state of the British financial economy. Well sod that, I'd rather talk about Isaac Hayes, and how his gold ropes and zebra skin flared suits are a metaphor for wanting to shake my booty on the dancefloor. Alas I missed the 1974 panel show round up by a mere three decades. Curse my mother's womb for acting so slowly! Luckily there are people out there still striving to make music actually worth talking about all the way in the future of shiny, Bacofoil wrapped 2012. Which looks suspiciously similar to 2011 (not to mention 2010.) This week Rinse.FM regular Distance and his label Chestplate are leading the charge into the musical melee. So let's make like Ike and rub some funk on it friends!

Dropping heavier than the news that we lost dearest Pat Butcher over New Years (peace be the journey my sweet matriarch) is the new 'Zombies / Scanners' 12" courtesy of fresh new Chestplate Records signing Sleeper. A side 'Zombies' fits seamlessly into the Chestplate aesthetic, framing swirling vocal chants around those deep, cloying bass throbs, which surge through on top a lumbering rhythm sequence, guaranteed to please the ears of any of the deep heads who are starting to tire of the endlessly trashy hyphy numbers currently defecating on the UK pop charts. On the flip side 'Scanners' applies a more subtle sonic strategy to get under your skin. With its chamber atmospherics and paranoid, shuffling rhythmic section it's no less heavy than the A-side, but, through the extremely tactile application of both space and silence, somehow seeps that little bit deeper into the memory banks.

Chestplate kingpin Distance has always been one of the finest selectors operating in dubstep and although last year his label released only a handful of cuts compared to many others they included his own Meanstreak EP and the Falling 12" (which still confounds me as to how it didn't achieve more public attention considering some of the pat like DJ Fresh that does) alongside some reliably excellent works from the like of District and Cyrus, which show that the concern is much more with quality than quantity, or mainstream recognition for that matter. If Sleeper's new cut is the first of the year for Chestplate you can expect another one of high watermarks much like 2011. Don't sleep on this label any longer, you can put your unwashed hands on a physical release of 'Zombies / Scanners' right now, or, if you can't be arsed with the physical discipline it takes to carry a record from the shelf to the deck then there is a download option too. My tip, however, for those of you cheeky little primates who have managed to drag yourself one rung higher on the evolutionary ladder, should pop over to http://www.surus.co.uk where you can buy the vinyl, thus entitling yourself to a free download as well. Everyone's a winner baby, that's the truth! You tell 'em Errol Brown...

Predictably Deep Medi Muzik have barged their way back onto my sonic joy dispenser this week with the newest slice of madness courtesy of Goth-Trad. The 'Air Breaker / Cosmos' 12" will be available physically and digitally from 30th of January and proceeds his forthcoming album New Epoch. The two new tracks both come fully loaded and prepped for dance floor disruption, whilst simultaneously showing off Goth-Trad's finely honed craft and stylistic variety. 'Air Breaker' is without doubt the more immediate of the two cuts, thundering from a radio static opening laced in aggressive synth stabs to a rolling, mechanised stomp of ridiculous pressure. However, as is commonly a key weapon in Goth-Trad's arsenal this isn't merely just a one dimensional bass thud slapped atop a skittering drum pattern; there are a myriad of sonic layers shifting in the background which means, dance floor or not, the track warrants serious repeat listens. Like the old mantra goes, the devil's in the details. Backing this track up is the slightly more subtle, but no less 'floor orientated 'Cosmos'. This track focuses on a rising swell of almost aquatic bass pressure, not unlike the sonic styling of 'Falling Leaf' from the Babylon Fall EP of last year, albeit passed through a fidgety electro filter. For reasons unbeknownst to me at the current time it also seems to be possibly the perfect track for a Benga remix. Someone send the man a memo.

Taking things further into the world of fidgety electro this week comes the newest platter from Al Tourettes, courtesy of the babyfaced bigwigs over at Sneaker Social Club. Only the second release for the fledgling label, after last years Throwing Snow beauty 'Shadower / Sanctum (of which A-side 'Shadower' is probably still my track of the year) comes the Habit Inventing EP. If you missed Tourettes work with Appleblim over on the Applepips imprint, or his Swan Sketch EP on Baselogic last year it is definitely worth jumping in with both feet on this one. A-Side 'Habit 7' is some textbook Al Tourettes work; in other words it is minutely arranged, endlessly morphing electro, the sort of which a jet fuelled Funkstorung may have pumped out were they still producing tunes. Featuring multiple rhythmic shifts, deranged synth effects spurting from all angles and a back beat seemingly partly constructed from table tennis balls it is a little slice of techy madness sure to bring a smile to you lips and hips. On the B-side 'Inventing' takes its name quite literally, skittering through a deep variety of rhythms and stylistic shifts touching on everything from IDM through techno to the irritable tones of Glitch. Possibly its greatest achievement however, through a combo of bubbling bass lines, a variety of computery bleeps, whirring lasers and sinister vocal clippings is that it reminds me of 60's kids serial Stingray. To be perfectly honest, you know you have to recommend a tune when you still want to repeatedly listen to it in spite of the fact it reminds you that your first true love, as an innocent 7 year old upstart, was of an 7 inch wooden marionette who was mute and wore fish skins. As if all this fidgety electro bounce (not to mention complex Freudian childhood memory dredging) weren't enough Sneaker Social Club have also laced the physical release with another wonderful A2 poster of the record's wonderful, trainer related artwork, itself produced by Al Tourettes' girlfriend. It seems only fitting a record which promotes complex footwork on the dance floor should also promote beautiful footwear for the dance floor. Just pray they don't get stepped on by some rhythm retarded Luddite.

So until next week children please keep you souls and your soles free of dogshit and chewing gum...