Virtual Riot & Whales - Insanity

Virtual Riot doing anything near trap tempo is worth stopping for, because the man is probably the most technically gifted sound designer in bass music and he treats every genre like a box of tools to raid. Insanity, with Israeli producer Whales, sits in that hybrid trap zone, half-time swing with dubstep weight crammed into the drops, and it is as detailed as you would expect. The sound design is the flex, obviously. Every bass growl is sculpted to within an inch of its life, textures folding over each other in a way that rewards a second and third listen just to catch what you missed. Whales brings a melodic streak that keeps it from being a pure sound-design exercise, giving the track an emotional centre before the drops arrive and demolish it. The risk with producers this skilled is that the cleverness crowds out the feeling. This one mostly dodges that, the hooks landing before the technicality starts showing off. It does occasionally tip into too-much, the way his records do, and I will take that over coasting on a single idea every time. There is more going on in the first drop than some artists manage across a whole EP.

Buy / stream this track →