Virtual Riot & Tokyo Machine - STATIC

When did a label crossover start feeling like a boxing promotion? STATIC is billed as NCS versus Monstercat, and pitting Virtual Riot against Tokyo Machine is the closest bass music gets to a marquee tag-team match. The good news is the track earns the billing. Virtual Riot is one of the most technically frightening producers alive, a guy whose sound design makes other producers close their laptops and reconsider the hobby, and Tokyo Machine brings the hyperactive, candy-coloured chaos that made his Monstercat run so fun. Together they build something that shouldn’t cohere and somehow does, all glitching stabs and detuned screeches folded into a groove that never once loses its footing. The drop is a genuine assault, a mess of digital debris arranged with surgical precision, the kind of thing you have to hear three times just to catch what’s happening in the middle of it. There’s a breakdown that strips everything back to a single wonky melody before the whole circus starts up again. Two labels, two producers, one very silly and very good idea. I don’t know who won the match and I don’t think it matters.

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