Hypersynchron＜限定盤＞

Italian-German project Dadub used to make a swirling, spacious mixture of ambient, techno, and dub, with more club-friendly EPs and a full-length debut on Stroboscopic Artefacts that sometimes lapsed into a volatile, destructive mode, particularly the collaboration with dubstep producer King Cannibal. After the album came out in 2013, members Daniele Antezza and Giovanni Conti focused on individual projects, and Antezza left Artefacts Mastering, founding his own Dadub Studio. Dadub returned in 2018 with sound designer and producer Marco Donnarumma part of the fold, and the rebooted project is something else entirely. Apocalyptic enough to land on Submergeds mighty Ohm Resistance stable, second album Hypersynchron is a poisonous wasteland of heavy, dislocated rhythms and creeping suspense, with a much greater emphasis on dubs most intoxicating qualities. Tracks like On Fungus Drool are blown out and claustrophobic, leaving no escape from the explosive bass and clattering feedback. The duo summon the ghosts of rave and jungle on Link to Quantum and Of Simulacra, and New Rationales for Subjugation is like one of Andy Stotts more diseased grime mutations, but with a dubby melodica wafting over the curdled rhythms. Labelmate Scorn contributes a remix in the middle of the album, adding a dose of dancehall terror as well as some frantically skittering trap hi-hats, fitting in with the records bleak aesthetic while adding a distinct perspective. Yet the album gets much stranger and more brutal, with tracks like Alien to Wholeness and both parts of Focus from the Outrage struggling to call out from the void. A totally unexpected shift from Dadubs earlier direction, Hypersynchron sounds like it was beamed in from another galaxy. ~ Paul Simpson