Compilation Review: ‘Rita Maia presents Sine of the Times’ (Badmood)

Rita Maia presents Sine of the Times

★★★☆☆

Putting on post-dubstep with two-step observance, Rita Maia’s sine language is all about the breathy that puts its back into it, and the heaviest of fine mists and light drizzle darting down until skin is soaked. While the umbrella is up, the watery effect flows through My Panda Shall Fly’s garage/techno tightening together “Kandy”. A simple case of bass collation and correlation, picked by a Portuguese spinner extending a choice radio show by casting a worldwide eye over mature low frequencies.

A tribal intervention apiece from Bongos Ikwue remixed by Simbad and BD1982’s “The Wave Chamber” opens up the premise, coloring the wispy grays and off-whites with rangy maximalist synths without straying from the dignified. An eleventh hour riposte has the all-out rave outburst of NKC’s “Fading Floor” wilding out when slipping into a pair of white gloves, and the lethal sniping of Visionist sounds killer, unfortunately not giving itself time to really impose itself. Otherwise the compilation sticks to standards in being toughly elegant and smoothing out the knife edge it balances upon (VVV’s “Lost and Found”). Nothing especially jumps out and declares revolution, maybe because of its all-in-together overview (which itself shows a bass as universal language motif), but it’s an assured and concise collection holding the line, and everything you could ask for when it comes to coverage of bass forms for all weathers.

File under: Badmood Collective, LV, Diskotopia

Album Review: VVV / ‘Across the Sea’ (Fortified Audio)

★★★★☆

Shawhin Izaddoost is the V-Cubed producer from Austin, TX who has the advantage of having access to dubstep’s self-protecting mode, but pulling it out from the corner it usually cowers in. The very title Across the Sea could well be code for embracing transatlantic developments in dubstep and bass, and has pockets of glumness and strong-silent typecasting. “Dolven” is your classic post-dubstep fading into grey, pulled back by ear-collapsing bass and jumbled vocal spectres. But with it, two-step skips shake up the place so that the ghostliness become something not to be afraid of or empathize with.

Synths and bass continually blow away the cobwebs, applying physics and physicality so that VVV is constantly pushing away negatives. Garage enlivener “Aisle Seat” bests in classiness and determination, ‘Retreated’ is too glossy to take a backseat, and “Traverse” is a merger of frisky 2-step and dubstep/bass’s looking for solitude and shelter, with neither getting in each other’s way. With the 8-bit bites of “Under Control,” VVV shows he’s one for fusion with a kick, for both inside and outside of headphones. While not breaking completely new ground when it comes to a unique inventory, it’s an album that’s a flawless demonstration of how to impart power when presenting something seemingly so fragile at heart.
File under: Kerogen, Burial, Sully