artists: Komonasmuk & White Boi / Cursor Miner
cat #: COMBAT013
format: split 12” vinyl
release: 16 April 2007
style: dubstep / electro / breakstep
distribution: veto.co.uk
click to listen
A Komonasmuk & White Boi - The Apocalypse
B Cursor Miner - Grimewatch
A >> Komonasmuk & White Boi - The Apocalypse
Side A sees 2 new sonic warriors on board the clan, appearing out of nowhere to deliver possibly of the heaviest halfstep tracks for this year... Test copies surfaced in selected independent stores - all got snapped up within hours, and it's not hard to see why : Apocalypse is immense work of snarling brutal bass and beats that's only "dubstep" in the loosest sense of the word - it retains the genre's heaviness and halfstep riddims, but thrusts everything far into a bleak, post-apocalyptic future wasteland, where you don't so much meditate on bassweight as you do on burning skies, crushed cities and total annhilation of all civilisation.
Gigantic kickdrums work in mechanical harmony with growling earth-shaking subs; each beat knocks you back squarely in the chest, giving barely enough time to recover before the next one hits... redline frequencies hiss and fizzle in a manner that would do Scorn and Vex'd proud.
The deviants for this work of destruction are Bristol's White Boi & Komonasmuk. The latter culprit is veteran producer Kieran Lomax, better known for his heavy drum and bass rollouts as Ice Minus, on seminal labels like Hard Leaders, Tech Itch, Audio Couture, Moving Shadow and Ice Minus Recordings. Alongside production partner and Sub FM's White Boi, they form part of the HENCH crew alongside Headhunter (Tempa / Acension), Tech Itch, Wedge and Jakes... This crew is responsible for pushing a militant, powerful techy sound in dubstep that's mirrored in producers like Vex'd, Distance, Blackmass Plastics, Crooked Man, Scan One, Mathhead, Stark Sound, Sully Shanks, Reso, Threnody and more... The early waves of a darker electronic undercurrent within the genre.... call it dubstep, call it industrial half-step etc, whatever it is, it's fierce, fresh and will wreck total havoc on large soundsytems from the first drop.
B >> Grimewatch - Cursor Miner
Lo Recordings mainstay and one of Combat's arch-deviants Cursor Miner steps forth to deliver this chunky, slick electro-tinged breakstep mutant. Grimewatch possesses one of the bounciest basslines we've ever heard or felt for that matter.... a huge elastic projectile ball of bass that pulls back, then flies out at you catapult-like, exploding in dub-like delays out in the distance behind.
This track has raised it's cheeky head at Cursor's various gigs for the past 3 years, mashed into his maniac peak-time live sets, as well as finding it's way into the DJ sets of mavericks like Si Begg and Combat crew. Half electro, half dubby break-step and all attitude, it's just another variant of Cursor's spazz-funk (his own words) - a very broad term to describe his typically skewed, off-kilter yet chunky, warm and insanely effective dancefloor releases. Expect the usual rolling, militant energy and glitchy hyper-edits of a Cursor production
Look out for C13 and future releases causing much havoc at these forthcoming gigs:
Bashout, Bristol (17 March)
BLOC Weekend, Pontins (23 / 24 / 25 March)
Yardcore, London (6 April)
UVA, Moscow (28 March)
Cross Club, Prague (20 April)
details and more info, contact Combat HQ on:
www.combatrecordings.com
myspace.com/combatsoundsystem