Supernatural Beast City is a potent combination of pummeling drum and bass and fragmented sounds and is a top choice from Duran Duran Duran’s extended catalog.
The sheer volume of breaks, bass, and distortion available here is overflowing
Duran Duran Duran skillfully slices a number of tracks into digestible chunks suitable for listening in a comfortable armchair in front of large bass bins or on the dance floor late into the night. The multi-talented sound-smith creates captivating grooves, and the sheer volume of breaks, bass, and distortion featured on Supernatural Beast City is overflowing. Producer Ed Flis, who currently resides in Berlin, continued the group project from Philadelphia as a solo endeavor, and nearly two decades later, Duran Duran Duran’s music is still just as powerful and impacting in the roaring twenties.
The mid-to late-1990s drum and bass underground was the golden age—which included artists like Goldie, A Guy Called Gerald, Doc Scott, LTJ Bukem, Roni Size, Spring Heel Jack (and others)—that caused a powerful movement by fusing fast-paced breakbeats with heavy-duty low-end frequencies to create otherworldly rhythms combining old-school samples, turntablism, hip-hop, jungle, reggae, and other micro-genres into a fluid hypnotic stew. Duran Duran Duran compliments this movement.
Supernatural Beast City captures the unadulterated aural beauty of the past despite its rough and repetitious tone, carving a new trajectory with a darker, almost Photek-like precision. Tracks like “Just Feel It” (with Dev/Null) and “Magnesium” are pierced by rave, industrial, and jungle soundscapes, and their enormity tends to erupt into generous stacato segments—reference the mighty “Ikaria.” “Hot Chicken” features bustling braindance and otherworldly layers, while “Club Med” and “94 Rinse.out,” which inhabit more conventional breaks and bass, balance out the overall sonic network. In the end, Supernatural Beast City is a potent combination of pummeling drum and bass and fragmented sounds and is a top choice from Duran Duran Duran’s extended catalog.
Supernatural Beast City is available on Woodland Creatures June 7, 2024 on Limited Edition 12″ green vinyl and digital formats. [Bandcamp]
Igloo Magazine exclusive feature of (promo only track) “Calcium.”
