- Seeing Blawan collaborate with Berlin's Analogue Cops feels a bit surprising. Would the Restoration duo's rigid and tracky sound be lit up by Blawan's pyrotechnics or would they merely hold it in uninspiring confinement? The result is in a happy medium: it's not quite like anything we've heard associated with Blawan before, but the change is more than welcome.
Blawan's contribution to the partnership is not a blitzkrieg of hammering drums and roiling rattles but an almost sinister militancy that underlines the Cops' own darkness with a streak of menace. Take "Illy," which features a thrashing beat that sounds like knives being sharpened over a pulsating two-note bassline. It's hard to tell exactly where Blawan comes in, but you can imagine him in those weird percussion sounds with frequencies sawn-off by the Analogue Cops' usual brutal filtering. "Sickle" dresses up the piston-slamming with pretty shards of high-strung chords before it adopts a friendlier bounce. "Aurum" is driven by syncopated snares and sibilant hats, but the real nastiness is saved for highlight "Quarto," where the muscular techno swing is offset by pummeling chords and obnoxious blobs of synth that sound almost threatening. Simultaneously heavyweight, acrid and futuristic, the partnership between Marieu, Lucretio and Blawan is one of the most satisfying interactions between bass music and house, and a reassuring salvo from a young producer who seems to be still finding his footing in that very realm.
Tracklist A1 Sickle
A2 Aurum
B1 Illy
B2 Quarto