Ipman’s debut album sees a blending of techno, bass-breaks, jungle and dubstep sounds come together into a powerful and discordant dance album. Beginning with the thunderous ‘Regicide’, the album launches into bass-driven rolling junglist drums. Sampled vocals on rave and soundsystem culture echo through the track and the result is thunderous. An ode to jungle rave music that is touched by newer elements of techno and rolling undercurrents of base to thus modernize the track.
Dub elements push the second, ‘Gravity Dub’, into a staggered and magnetizing nod-along song. Whilst in ‘O’ we see an ambient bass track reminiscent of Koreless to get lost into. Another highlight is in ‘Strong Ones’, a bassweighty crackling of garage and techno.
What’s great about Ipman’s first album is the drawing together of different underground bass genres that seems novel in its fusing. The variety of each track suggests a promising career for the newest addition to the ever-promising Tectonic Label, headed up by the pioneer of new bass sounds that is Pinch.
To be sure, this is a club album, and a heavy one at that. The structures to the tracks are continually upturned to create a forward thinking album that pushes the recognized influences into new directions. ‘Technicolor’ is perhaps the best example of this, taking the top notes of techno and lower notes of dubstep to create a dark space where listeners are taken on a rollercoaster of rumbles and claps. You’re never really sure what stage of the album you’re in – it’s a cascading, dark ode to rave music that upturns beat loops and sees each track composed of intricate and novel parts, each pushing you into a thrillingly dark rainbow of sound waves.
Stand out is ‘Regicide’ if you’re going to listen to one track. Those drums coupled with that underlying bass kick absolutely kill.
4/5 stars