The second vinyl release from the ever-consistent Macabre Unit imprint comes from label staple, and arguably one of the best producers to emerge from the UK in recent years, Biome working in collaboration with the man behind the M.U.D/M.U.V movement, Demon.
Lead track 'Incubus' is a beat with a split personality, almost nodding its head to its origins in the imaginations of two separate producers. Gliding in on airy atmospherics, an emotive Eastern vocal sample and a lead synth-line that would be just as at home atop a trance anthem; the groove is easy and euphoric. A little under two minutes in, however, and a gunshot crack marks the point at which the tune is stripped down to its raw elemental state: sub-bass rolls, a rising mid-range bassline and ear-splitting snare snaps.
On the flipside is 'Symmetry', and again there is that sense of a tune of two parts; yet here the distance between the elements is far narrower, and even the listener most familiar with the work of both Biome and Demon individually would have difficulty discerning each individual influence on the track. This is a collaboration in the finest sense of the word, in which each artist mirrors and then completes the other's input to create, as wordplay would have it, a unique sense of symmetry. Where vocal samples reverberate outward, there is a taut snare tugging the groove back into line; while the kick drums establish a straight, stomping rhythm, hi-hats and slapped toms drive on at their own pace. Not unlike the eight-bar grime with which Demon entered the music scene, 'Symmetry' chops and changes as it progresses; but it does so without the predictable, looping format that determined that style of grime's short life-span, instead it instils Biome's core idea of taking the listener on a journey. And it is fitting that at this point, in the moment at which the tune achieves its real sense of togetherness, that the two producers' separate influences can be picked apart from each other.
Biome & Demon - Incubus
Biome & Demon - Symmetry
Vinyl release date: 16/07/12
Digital release date: 06/08/12
.Preacha.
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