DNO005 - Red Clouds EP Review
- Sound Boy Ent.
- Apr 2, 2021
- 2 min read
Signals firing from Belgium, Clearlight and Owl lay down serious weight on DNO’s fifth release. Here at Sound Boy Ent, “highly anticipated” would be an understatement. Entitled 'Red Clouds', this EP sees both the label and the producers covering new territory while staying true to their signature sounds. Released on March 31st, the four songs on this record are atmospheric and precise, genre-defying and bass-heavy, and guaranteed to transport the dance to another world. Prepare yourselves, DNO005 packs some truly abstract heaters.
On the A side, 'Alert, Red Clouds' is a perfect introduction from its first glitched call. It has all the elements of what’s in store: tense pads, dislocated pieces of melody, and, after the warning passes and escape seems possible, monstrous low-end. This textural 140 stomper sways along, picking up momentum with every robotic bark. The next track, 'LOBE', a halftime 170 roller, soldiers through eerie synth beds and detuned melodies. Surgically chopped percussion urges it forward through clouds of digital gnats, gathering speed. The B side takes us back down to 140, but 'Bronskee Dubskee' is a different space; rainforest ambiences set the tone, and there are glimpses of a whining synth through the trees. It mourns the approach of a demented sub line that lurches through the primordial murk. Its slouching cadence and merciless pitch modulation is designed to give those bass bins a proper workout. When it pauses for the breakdown, a panoramic ambient wasteland opens up in its wake, before it regains its energy.
Drum & bass heads might be familiar with Clearlight and Owl’s meticulous and immersive sound design from their collaborative project - GLYPH (Transparent Audio, Delta 9 Recordings), a name that’s been terrorizing dance floors for years with their techy, kinetic take on D&B. As solo artists, their output spans dubstep, ambient, and techno, and all of it is visionary. Between them, they boast releases on such diverse labels as Subaltern, Re:st, Foundation Audio, and Silent Season. DNO, meanwhile, has released some of the most powerful 140 in the past year (shoutout to the Russian don Kercha and Japan’s Back To Chill veteran City1), and then broke the mold with an EP straight from the D&B underground by The Untouchables. They continue to expand their catalogue and push genre defying music with each release, and they couldn’t have tapped anyone better suited for the job than Clearlight and Owl.
The last track on DNO005 is called 'Bottom Of The Deep', and it clocks in at about 123bpm. As the title suggests, it takes us even deeper, proving once again that, no matter the tempo or genre, Clearlight and Owl will deliver. The pressure is sea-floor heavy down here. A hefty two-step kick drum pulses relentlessly, while pelagic honks and signals reverberate around the stereo field. The foray into garage-inflected techno isn’t out of place. It’s all part of one sound: Clearlight and Owl. We can’t wait to hear these flex on a big system.
LINK TO PURCHASE:
LINKS TO SUPPORT:
Written by: James Farrell
コメント