Via Maris - MR-01

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  • More than a decade after dubstep reached the city—and more than two since trip-hop—it's still hard to keep up with the sheer volume of interesting dance music coming out of Bristol. The style of the moment is post-Livity techno, though the mood—solemn, dubwise—is eternal. Via Maris, debuting on a new label from the city's Tape-Echo crew, gives it a fresh twist. His rhythms are subtly unusual, his atmospheres arctic. "Credentials" is the more striking of the two tracks. The best thing about it is the groove, a broken-beat lope bound up with barbed-wire hi-end. What little melody there is drifts past in a thin fog, punctuated by distorted blasts of what might be a voice. "Glimpse" is equally sparse. Its rustling shakers and crisp sidesticks, combined with blasts of synth horn, suggest grime. Only it's grime pitched way down and emptied of bravado, leaving little more than echoes and paranoia.
  • Tracklist
      A Credentials B Glimpse
RA