The chaps at Rewind Forward have been killing it since opening up their specialist online store a year or so ago. It was through the second No Corner release – the Kahn & Neek – Gorgon Grime cassette – that I started ordering cassettes and the odd t-shirt and wax off of them, never disappointed by the selection they’ve got in stock, and through the shop I’ve discovered a load of artists, labels and boutique releases that otherwise wouldn’t cross my radar.
Had high expectations for the Filter Dread cassette then; Space Loops being the latest in the No Corner catalogue of tape only releases. Wasn’t disappointed on first listen with the dark manipulations of bass loops, and subsequent listens just kept throwing more and more light on Filter Dread’s masterful production.
As a collection / mix of original ideas and sketches battered over club loops and scattered rhythm (as opposed to completed wax-ready recordings), the tracks are kept suitably short with all 22 pieces clocking in around the 42 minute mark. Not the first time we’ve seen this idea done, and not even on this format (check Madteo’s incredible Low Dip Revue on The Trilogy Tapes) but these recordings are definitely a cut above most.
Digital layouts definitely, but with unexpected murkiness and ragga echo to the sounds, Filter Dread is blatantly a junglist stepper and dubstep raver at heart, with an incredible ear and level of talent. Properly stoked that he and No Corner decided to put this out, as the end result is a stunning listen perfectly suited to the format.
Limited to 90 copies on cassette, bump on over to the Rewind Forward shop and get an order together before they fly out. Check the promo video below, press wording just under that.
via No Corner
Dense, paranoid hazes of late nights and patch leads, Akai samplers left running through grubby delay units…breaks stretched to their serrated limit, exposing the pitted drum hits that the UK underground is built on, from Jungle to Grime and beyond.
Enter the mind of Filter Dread -–sonic archaeologist – deconstructing 20 years of source material and recomposing it through a twisted maze of appropriately archaic technology.
Space Loops is his most substantial body of work to date, a 40-minute trip of entirely original material, 22
tracks in total, seamlessly blended and transferred to cassette, returning to the tape packs that influenced his music in the first place.
A warped document of tense, Jungle-rooted experimentation from one of the most liberated minds operating within the UK underground.
‘A lot of the time it’s not the execution of the track, it’s the build up and design of the concept beforehand…’