praetorius, Mar 21, 2008
Bad Sekta are an independent label from the UK, specialising in what they call "wonky electronic music".
I've been monitoring / enjoying their output for a while now and so thought I'd write a short review of their latest cdr compilation -
Titled "Memetrix", the cd is a limited edition of 123 and comprises 18 tracks for a fiver, which I reckon is pretty good value.
There's quite a nice variety of styles included here, covering a large section of where this "scene" is currently at, from the heavily insane to the softly plinky and from older, more established acts like Stitch (Headfuk) or Fzv (Ai /Rag & Bone) through to some newer acts like 18 year old winner of the recent Bristol Laptop Battle, The Fez!, or the tenderly-aged (15!) Tryptomatik.
Like many of the recent releases from Bad Sekta, this comes with colour artwork in a plastic slipcase and also has some weird black & white art on the cd itself.
Anyway, in the interest of brevity I shall just list a few of the tracks that standout most for me, although lots of the others are good too...
(in no order of preference) :
Bleak Reference - "Karmic Reconstruction Unit" This track is rather good, if a little long at 7m44s. Excellent production and a sparse, thoughtful arrangement - punishingly distorted breaks, imaginitively cutup with murky snips of voices and some really nice, heavily processed synths / ambiences, breaking out into hard as nails, full on breakcore skullduggery - mmm!
Dj Richard Hillman - "Derek Acorahs Laser Eyes"
Schizophrenically veering between shards of sound, this is scarily dark rave/breakcore, done in a pretty original-sounding way. Ultra-fractured and frenetic yet eminently foot-tappable!
Dj Ultimate Kevin - "Shitter, Fatter, Balder, Sadder" I'm voting for this guy to be voted "Greatest Nom de Plume Ever"! Anyway, this for me is an amazing tune - all the sounds are well-produced and well old-skool, with nice pads, phatty-boom bass, crispy bit-reduction breaks and some hugely original vocal samples (honest!), and the track is really classic sounding - enjoying the bass!
Lastboss - "Maricone Roads" Apparently this track is derived from a Frank Zappa piece - I for one would have been very interested in hearing Mr. Zappa's opinion of it! The afore-mentioned song, heavy-as bass, computer game samples and some wicked synth / noise fx, all cutup with the precision and groove I've come to expect from Lastboss - a name to watch, I think...
Randomoidz - "Raggage Baggage" This just makes me want to dance every time I listen - phat bass, some impeccable arrangement and typically wicked production combined with loads of nicely organic filtering and distortion, with just enough invention and repetition to really work the dancefloor.
All in all, I'd say a pretty successful release, although the one gripe I have is that I think they could have balanced the order / levels out a bit, but then maybe that's the point with these kind of releases?
4.3/5 (