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2x12"
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SMNCHR 007EP
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A substantial six-track effort, consistent in its experimentation with mood, texture, pace, and aesthetics. Energy fluctuates track to track -- from the colossal, largely beatless spaces of "Arlington CT9" to the pulsing, bass-driven cores of "Pace Myself" and "She Giv." The flipside hits with a more immediate, brusque edge -- ruder dancefloor tools that still push the borders. There's a deconstructive approach on the percussively sparse "Lunar Tide Cycle" and "Gravity Flux" that defies typical expectations of what constitutes club music. The UK funk-inflected rhythms of "Switch" add some anxious, high-tension drama and another permutation to a rhythmically diverse release.
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12"
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BMBL 001EP
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Badimup inaugurates its series of limited Black Label releases with a special edition reissue of Wen's "Swingin," in response to ever-increasing demand. Accompanied by a stone cold remix from Facta on the flip and pressed on translucent violet vinyl.
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12"
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TEC 083EP
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Wen blends moods of early dubstep and grime with techno, effortlessly pushing into unfamiliar territory. At 128 bpm, "Backdraft" is a moody roller with a slow-mo sci-fi bass line, littered with short bursts of grime vocals and snatches of rave rewind echoes. "Finesse" moves things into a more tribal context, filling the air with charged tension before releasing a beastly sub to hammer home the point. Again, at 128bpm, Wen showcases the increasingly blurred lines between original dubstep vibes and techno tempos. "Ghost" clocks in at 160bpm, and falls somewhere between classic Photek and dubstep circa 2005, with cutting-edge production.
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CD
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LDN 044CD
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Meet Wen, the 22 year-old production prodigy with his own bass-heavy sound built on a pulsing rhythmic backbone, a nuanced sense of environmental texture, and coded vocal samples that interject like pulses. You could call the latter "signals." The album begins by building a space, setting the mood; settling into the kind of textures and temperament not often heard since the very earliest era of dubstep -- long before Wen's time. "Galactic," resurrected from a corrupted Fruity Loops file on a lost hard drive, is ethereal Blade Runner grime. "Lunar," which features Keysound label boss Blackdown, is a Detroit-style night drive through Babylon. Like a breaking storm, the album builds in power and intensity. At almost exactly the mid-point -- during the bouncy but otherwise warm 4x4 garage relick of "Swingin'" -- the calm is punctured. Often sampled from dense London slang and live pirate radio, these are Wen's heavy signals; weighed down with coded nuance. Power, locale, identity, intent, inequality, sexuality, gender, diversity, energy: all are regular themes of these encoded pirate transmissions. "Vampin'" leads you into a hot afterhours club scene full of complex, interpersonal power dynamics of those living for the weekend.
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12"
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LDN 035EP
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Embedded in the DNA of Wen's sound are some of grime's base pairs and his singular talent is to find fresh new ways to express them. Vocal chops, eski square synths, concentrated anger-energy: these core grime elements find themselves in dread new surroundings in Wen's hands. "Commotion" takes the commotion of grime and cools it down to absolute sub-zero. "Spark It," "Road," and "Nightcrawler" continue the experimental blend of 130 BPM bass drops, dread atmospheres, ill-defined percussive grooves and grime vocal calls-to-action.
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