- Germany-based duo Oake's debut 12-inch mines a similar vein of dread as Haxan Cloak's upcoming Excavation album or Blackest Ever Black's Dalhous. Its three tracks slither forward, their rhythms flickering in a mire of clustered kicks, human moans and roughly scraped strings. The title track blends these basic elements with a thunderstorm's worth of rumbling background noise that roils forward to become an overbearing force. "Dybbuk" opens with the booms of a monstrous drum, which gradually escalate into a clattering techno track whose surface is plagued by a dissonant chorus of violin shrieks. It's melodramatic stuff, but it's well aware of it, so it never feels too po-faced.
Although Downwards techno is an audible influence, OAKE's sound is rawer and folk-tinged, drawing most strongly from the lineage of post-industrial British acts like Carter Tutti, Nurse With Wound and Coil. The stark and dramatic "Left Already" hints at the latter's later music, a moonlight-bathed nocturne scored with swooping strings. It's strongly suggestive of wintertime, its drones drifting through the air like fog, while percussion crackles as though coated with a layer of frost.
TracklistA Drenba Nih Sendaut
B1 Erajh Nur Dwfa
B2 Nihnin Ned Bargund