NEWS
EVENTS
Album of the month: Rabit – Communion
Drum and Bass | Wednesday 17th February 2016 | Cristina
Rabit is one of the most influential artists currently working in grime, an extraordinary feat considering he’s from Texas. Rabit, AKA Eric Branson, paved the way for the kind of experimental, instrumental grime that Mumdance peddles in the UK.
Lotic, like Rabit, also comes from Houston and produces a similar, slanted grime. Together they’re shaping a sound which is pure escapism when considered in context. Radically different to local music, Rabit and Lotic’s electronica harks to a place simultaneously darker and more free than Texas.
The album lurches between shrill blips which are distorted grime references, abrasive kicks and disturbing samples. Throughout Communion, Rabit’s allegiance is to a mood of brutality rather than one music genre or another, making it the kind of free-thinking electronic music perfect for Tri Angle Records.
Album highlight ‘Black Gates’ is based on juddering quips which sound like the dying cries of a robotic dolphin, whilst ‘Trapped in This Body’ flirts with atonal noise which would be just as at home in a Slipknot record as it would here.
The glitchy ‘Pandemic’ is exemplary of the industrial element of the release, which takes up equal space to grime throughout. It ends in a cinematic barrage of gunshot samples and equally hammering kicks, evoking Eyes-Have-Hills style horror and macabre.
