Work It, No is guaranteed to blow all the cobwebs out and probably upset 90 percent of the people within earshot. It’s got hints of the more savage and noisy end of dubstep, it has that massive bass mixed with solid half time beats that make you want to move.
[Release page] Berlin based Dead Fader make extremely good extreme music. Brutally distorted and ridiculously heavy on the bass, this new EP is guaranteed to blow all the cobwebs out and probably upset 90 percent of the people within earshot. It’s got hints of the more savage and noisy end of dubstep, it has that massive bass mixed with solid half time beats that make you want to move. It also reminds me of daring hip-hop in the vein of Dalek or the more recent Death Grips; slow distorted beats that thump you in the chest, the collaboration with New York MC Sensational on the track “Fishsh” brings this analogy home succinctly. This EP also reminds me of the stuff I used to love in the early ‘90s from bands like Head Of David, Big Black, Godflesh and Lard. All really good outfits who used slow aggressive sounds cleverly to great effect. I have to mention the almighty Scorn here too, as long as I’m comparing Dead Fader to other music.
Calling this EP Noise music, doesn’t really do it justice, although it may be as close a definition as you might find. Distortion is the glue that binds the EP, and it’s laid on thick, but it’s clever distortion. Yes, it really is! This is not merely the application of distortion effects, this is intense and highly engineered sonic engineering. The effect is fluid and organic, morphing and growing through the pounding beats to give the feel of a barely restrained fire-breathing monster heaving against the cave walls of its prison. The whole EP sounds pretty organic actually, slightly raw and a bit loose. It’s quite refreshing in this world of digital grids and polished-to-perfection production to hear something this base, but that really holds together in a way that makes you want to jump about. Dancing may be pushing it a bit far, but jumping about—definitely. It sounds like it must be done with analogue gear, how else could this level of grinding abrasiveness be achieved? But, according to this excellent interview with them, they use digital equipment almost exclusively. Just goes to show that in the right hands, digital production can be just as exciting and full of life as anything else.
Work It, no is one of the most interesting and speaker destroying pieces of music I’ve heard in a long time. It has the ability to work its way into a bass heavy DJ set (with some skill), but has that middle finger in the air attitude to the clean and rigid norm of a lot of contemporary electronic music. It really appeals to the schoolboy punk loving kid in me who would buy the most abrasive music he could find, put the speakers on the window sill and laugh gleefully as the neighbors shook their heads in consternation. Until my Dad came storming upstairs demanding I turn it down that is.
Work It, no is available on Robot Elephant. [Release page]
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