Photophob :: Wasteland Vibes (Laridae)

Photophob has got a very deep, dark and densely textured sound going on with hints of apocalyptic dubstep, shoegaze and industrial influences. Thick rasping basses sear through oppressive textures like missiles across the sky of a city razed to the ground.

Photophob has got a very German sound going on. He’s Austrian, but I don’t really mean German as in specifically coming from Germany, it just has a vibe to it that I associate with German (and maybe Dutch) speaking countries. This sounds all wrong—I’m not making some generic racial stereotype categorization with that comment, but more of a reference to Germany as the birthplace of electronic music thanks to the famous Cologne studio. Not that I want to stir up the old Musique concréte vs Elektronische Musik debate! Germany has traditionally been the home to some of the more heavy, dense and outright scary types of electronic music over the years, from Stockhausen to Kraftwerk to the techno artists who carved out their own area of the genre. Maybe the German reference was a poor one, let’s leave it at ‘Photophob has got a very deep, dark and densely textured sound going on with hints of apocalyptic dubstep, shoegaze and industrial influences’. Thick rasping basses sear through oppressive textures like missiles across the sky of a city razed to the ground. Oh right, I get it now—Wasteland Vibes. That’s exactly what it sounds like.

This is a pretty angry sounding release. The whole thing seems to growl and snarl from the swirling beds of sonic texture. It reminds me of Hecq, Mobthrow and Niveau Zero, all of whom, coincidentally, have released on the Ad Noiseam label. In fact, this feels very much like something from the Ad Noiseam stable, which can only be a good thing.

For those who like their dubstep/bass vibes heavy, intricate and verging on industrial, this is for you. If you want to imagine a world that has been ravaged by global war, leaving nothing but the half demolished remnants of reinforced concrete buildings for the surviving humans to exist in caveman-like tribes, this is definitely for you.

Wasteland Vibes is available on Laridae.