The Madrid-based producer from Manchester delivers old-school blistered beats with downtempo elements and tosses them about. The resulting deconstructed and bass-infused tracks tend to shift and shatter.
Setting the stage for broken beat electronics merged with hip-hop transfusions
LAITR debuts with Belfast-based Acroplane and sets the stage for broken beat electronics merged with hip-hop transfusions. The Madrid-based producer from Manchester delivers old-school blistered beats with downtempo elements and tosses them about. The resulting deconstructed and bass-infused tracks tend to shift and shatter on Sapphire Send. “Alephs,” for example, is a classic example of movement based left-field dub and garage slivers crossing wires with glitch sound design.
For fans of Gescom, Shadow Huntaz, The Fear Ratio, Machine Drum, and Hatch, LAITR delves into similar dimly-lit corners of sample-laden and verbalized shuffling. Often taking a more minimalist approach (ref. “Sacrament” and its subtly jagged crevasses), Sapphire Send astutely exposes spliced vocal slabs with ease. “A Fire Derides” sheds just enough experimentation and magnetically comes together as a disjointed sonic concoction. “Parsa” sways back and forth into sliced cinematic terrain while maintaining its grit and crunch.
The highlight takes shape midway with pleasant, off-center white noise. “Raiene” begins with eerie apocalyptic soundscapes and eventually implodes with an influx of corrosive bleeps surrounded by heavy bass thuds and robotic hip-hop contours diced with vocal treatments pulling you into the abyss. And yet this album isn’t just a myriad of splattered drums and skeletal rap loops, “Under Ether” and “Zero Archive” offer a breather in just under 2-minutes—their dark ambient/industrial sludge distracts the senses as the closing track (“Await”) beat stretches into a serene carnival and funky opus fading into sweet oblivion. A seriously impressive debut for LAITRt hat we’ll be returning to.
Sapphire Send is available on Acroplane. [Bandcamp]
