(12.21.06) It’s quite clear that Kode9 developed and improved his sound a lot in the last couple of years, because comparing Memories Of The Future with his tracks on the Grime 2 compilation will make you wonder if they come from the same source. Grime discs on Rephlex showed indeed a new, emerging sound from the london underground, but at that time it wasn’t mature enough, and this is why I didn’t follow the scene until last year or so.
Memories Of The Future is a stunning piece of work, that features both deep dub production and profound lyrics: Kode9 chiselled his crisp beats and gloomy sub bass to fit under The Space Ape’s complex speeches, adding a new dimension to dubstep mechanics. MC haters really don’t have many arguments here, The Space Ape is not a standard youngster who doesn’t do much apart from dissing other MC’s, he instead shows meaningful spoken word focused on media, terrorism and social issues using scientific or sci-fi terminology, and adapting his voice to the mood of the track. Over the pounding beats of “Backward,” “Curious” and “Portal” he’s intense and menacing, while on the more minimal episodes his words become a dusty muttering, as happens on “Nine,” “Addiction” or on the already seminal “Sine.” Let me spend a few lines on this latter tune, in case you’ve never heard of it: basically it’s a very stripped down reinterpretation of Prince’s “Sign O’ The Times,” as you can tell by paying attention to the words used by The Space Ape, that reprise the original lyrics, adapted to a concrete jungle setting. I said stripped down, but it’s more than that. The instrumental section is a bare skeleton based on a monolithic sinewave bass (hence the title), plus just a hi-hat and some sparse dub reverbs, utterly charming. This said, my personal opinion is that to reach perfection Memories Of The Future should have been accompanied by a second disc of instrumental versions like Razor-X Productions or Rhythm & Sound did in the past: this is by no means a critic against The Space Ape, it’s just to underline that Kode9 productions are really musically perfect, I’m sure they would shine in all their beauty.
This record is for sure the most complex to come out for the rising dubstep niche, there are no compromises to gain a wider audience, but it could achieve an enormous success following the widely acclaimed Burial debut. One thing is settled, in 2006 Hyperdub entered with a bang in the electronic music scene, and now the expectations are high for the future.
Memories Of The Future is out now on Hyperdub. .
