Chipped and stinking of smoke, this collective has plundered styles and produced something demanding, gnarled and gloriously pock marked. A record living up to the label motto, Where There’s a Rat, There’s a Life.
Some names do their jobs better than others. The combination of syllables, the meeting of broad and slender vowels, the images the word conjures. Putting a title to something is important. Naming a label is no exception. The choice needs to reflect the mission of the imprint, the music it releases and its attitude to the world in general. Rat Life is a label whose name sums up all if of these quite well. Hailing from Dresden, the sublabel of Uncanny Valley sniffs out sounds from the shadows, following its nose and instincts as it forages through the undergrowth of DIY punk and boxroom electronics.
The first name jumping from the inner is New York’s very own Neud Photo. Nico Nightingale has been making ripples across a number of imprints, releasing his own brand of sheer electro, contemplative wave and brooding EBM. His entry, “Wig Walker”, is a combination of all three genres. This slow burner belter, bpms trudge around the one hundred mark, means the intrepid Dj type will either be plusing or minusing on the 33 or 45. Yet, it is this smoldering intensity that gives the track its energy. Samples cut and clamber over rusted claps, sullen kicks and a throbbing bass coalesce create a sledgehammer of sound that will surely have neighbors banging on the walls. On a bed of toms and slender snares Credit 00 sows a jittering and juddering string line. His source material comes from Ca$hminus’ “No Satisfaction”, originally released on Bordello A Parigi. The Rat Life boss adheres closely to the original, the grease, sleaze and pumping chords, as he pours a gallon of crude oil over everything to leave a dark sticky reduction. In fact, much of the 12” is about reducing elements down to their cold core. Take the clinical frigidity of Project Eins’ stark and surgical angles of “Hit N Run.” The most angular of the quartet comes from the aptly named Skoov. Crooked chords croak and split under a boot of distorted beats, fractured words double in pain in a superbly lonesome piece.
Various Rats is difficult to define. Chipped and stinking of smoke, this collective has plundered styles and produced something demanding, gnarled and gloriously pock marked. A record living up to the label motto, Where There’s a Rat, There’s a Life.
Various Rats is available on Rat Life.
