A six-track extended player that busts and buries downtempo beats in a low-end mass of jazzy extracts and distorted jungle.
Amon Tobin’s Brickolage (Ninja Tune, 1997) immediately comes to mind on Black Steel—especially opening piece “Republica”—a six-track extended player that busts and buries downtempo beats in a low-end mass of jazzy extracts and distorted jungle. Four original pieces smothered in rhythmic glitch and dub, Ukraine’s Collage Noire maneuvers textured percussion and instrumental frequencies into contained time capsules. Sandpaper grit and a roughened finish from start to end, Black Steel reveals mashed sonic contours. On remix duty L’Oniraunote offers an acidic bass slurry and ragga shuffled tones as Flint Kids shatters and decomposes “Melhesedek” into segmented vociferous channels. Overall an engulfing smorgasbord of leftfield and cohesive electronic streams tucked away in a brief 6-pack audio collage.
Black Steel is available on Kaometry.
