3rd April 2014

Dark0 - Sin EP (Lost Codes)

(with Filter Dread Remix)

Grime producer Dark0 comes with a release on Lost Codes. Featuring a Filter Dread Remix of 'Phobos'.

dark0 sin front for filterdreadcom.png

Reviews

Boomkat

Another rising star of the new wave of grime and another high-note for Visionist's Lost Codes label. Like similar producers, Dark0 mixes sparse cybernetic 2014 sounds with the synth hues of classic grime and funky, but Sin's knack for a vital melodic hook stands out. Add in a high-octane, hi-tech remix from Filter Dread and something surprising in 'Jinn' - ethereal mood miasma after Clams Casino but with a sharp edge - and it's a new grime promise fulfilled.

Resident Advisor

Grime's debt to videogames can't be overstated. Even aside from the stuff that was made on a games console, much of the genre's worldview was delivered through a backlit screen. When London's Davor Bokhari recently enthused about his favourite videogame soundtracks, he demonstrated that this idea applies equally to grime's younger generation (also see Strict Face's "Fountains" or Murlo's refix of TRC's "You & Me"). 

It's therefore no surprise that while Bokhari's latest EP has plenty of gnarled bass pulses and itchy grooves, it's the melodies that stand out. On "Phobos" it's digi-panpipes played off against a gaunt squarewave bassline. "Chaos," meanwhile, pivots between a redemptive A section and a darker B section, its richly layered synths almost symphonic in scope. "Skelly"'s creamy technoid chords are perhaps the most unexpected presence, but the way they're massaged into a coherent, engaging narrative is par for the course. Only "Jinn" is a little too saccharine—or perhaps, soaked in reverb and sporting a frustratingly disjointed groove, it just doesn't deliver the sugar in the right way. Fortunately fellow Lost Codes signee Filter Dread is on hand with the antidote: an utterly brutal remix of "Phobos." It's as if he's stomped on the original and then tried to mend it with a dried-out Pritt Stick. The result lacks the subtlety of Dark0's originals, but it's a welcome jolt of adrenaline all the same.