(July 2009) After his long-player Aerial last year, things really slowed down for 2562. It has been more than a year since that album, and all he has done has been one half of a split 12″ with Martyn, Kontrol. Perhaps he was letting the album speak for itself – a mammoth, uniform slab of monochromatic techno-dubstep. The album was perhaps a little too successful in its goal, taking its ideas past their logical extensions and sometimes suffocating the listener. Or maybe he was letting his label-mates on Tectonic speak for him – it’s certainly been a good year for the label, with releases from Joker, FlyLo, Pinch, and Skream.
2562’s newest, then, is a welcome addition to his canon, colorful, lively, and more vivacious than his previous work. The A side, “Love In Outer Space,” takes cues from 2000F & J Kamata’s latest Hyperdub single You Don’t Know What Love Is, especially in terms of percussion. The drum track here is an ultra-syncopated TR-909 love letter, with random toms, claps, and hi-hats scattered everywhere. There’s a 16th note melody running through most of the song that borders on sounding aleatoric, but it still manages to anchor the other synth part, which wouldn’t be out of place on a SND record if it didn’t fly and wobble every which way (that’s a good thing, in this context). The bassline, looming in the background and sounding like Zomby’s “Liquid Dancehall,” keeps vigilant watch over the whole track.
The flip side is “Third Wave,” which is weaker and more deserving of a “techno-dubstep” classification. A standard house/trance beat runs though the whole song, sometimes augmented by finger snaps or hi-hats to add a dubstep feel. Spacey whooshes and other sound effects appear at various points, backed by a meandering synth line.
Overall, this is a strong step forward from the robotic depths of Aerial. Hopefully, 2562’s new material will be more like “Love In Outer Space,” which adds a little bit of fun to the mix – an element that a lot of his previous work lacked.
Love In Outer Space is out now on Tectonic. [Purchase / Listen
