Filthy. That’s the first word that came out of me when the bass hit on “Stop Scheming,” and I stand by it. Zero builds this around one of those detuned, talking basslines that sounds like a machine trying to form a sentence, and around the 1:30 mark it descends into a wobble that has no business being this precise. There’s a vocal snippet — a chopped “stop scheming on me” — that gets mangled a little more each time it comes back, the sort of small cruelty I love in this genre. This is proper UK dubstep, all weight and space, none of the festival-EDM gloss that flattened the sound for a few years. The gaps between the hits are half the point; Zero lets the low end ring out and decay before the next one lands, so your chest gets a second to recover. It’s not doing anything a Tempa release wouldn’t have done fifteen years ago, and honestly that’s a compliment — the fundamentals are timeless and this nails them. On a real subwoofer it’s borderline violent. Turn it up and let the neighbours file their complaint.
January
Chrome Daydream
Chrome stars, jelly hearts and holographic colour. A nod to the glossy, optimistic graphics of the early web.