Mark Broom - Black Russian EP
Posted by
Martin Gould at
19/06/2008 01:15:07
Whether you like this one or not depends on how you take your techno. This is pretty heavy stuff - not in the brainless sense, nor in the "kick drum or nothing" sense, but the drum patterns here are unforgiving. From the opening of Black Russian - a mildly reverby affair suddenly dominated by the kind of percussion that wouldn't sound out of place in a noisy electro track - it's pounding stuff all the way. Similarly, Bounce has the kind 4/4 basis that sounds like it could give a decent sized army a run for its money.
All this might make it sound like I'm not keen on the tracks, and that would be unfair. The tracks have character and share a distinctive style that means you certainly know what you're listening to. While I do feel that the two tracks I've mentioned above lack a sense of progression, Riddim more than makes up for this with some clever phonic layering building up a danceable sense of urgency. Again, though, this isn't a track that clicks away politely in the headphones - when you're listening to this, you know about it.