VA - Senses in the Sand (2023)

Supremely darkside selection by Karl O'Connor featuring exclusives from Regis and Mønic plus a dozen bullets from Pessimist, Overlook, Ipman, Killawatt and more, documenting a very specific moment in the mid-late 10's where a bunch of renegades from D&B, techno and bass music lurched into a no-mans-land of industrial techno, moody electronics, autonomic D&B, halfstep and noisy bass experiments. Now almost 20 years into its thing, osiris was established in 2006 by Simon Shreeve as a sort of dubwise cousin to Downwards' more industrial predilections. Long intertwined with Regis through his label but also their collaborative work as Cub, Shreeve's eye toward the hardcore continuum bleeds heavy into pretty much all the apocalyptic grot on show, veering from abstract noise textures to fully sunken, bombed out acid bass and peak-time rollers. We start around 2013 with a pair of missiles from Ipman and Killawatt, the former punctuating pile-driving snares and snarling synths, the latter somehow sounding like a classic Burial woodblock intro turned full moody, red-lining wobbler. Mønic's 'Blink' explores the elastic binds between dubstep and industrial/dub techno on a throbbing slow roller, while Dot Product tread into the sort of post-apocalyptic sci-fi territory claimed by the likes of Roly Porter. Pessimist's 'Pagans' more or less steals the show, going at it with churning subs and strafing hi-hats, while Overlook's scowling 170bpm D&B madness 'Former Self' is just pure aggy brilliance. The previously unreleased 'Skin Of The Sea' from Simon Shreeve & Regis finishes things off with something like industrial slowcore, taking a sort of autonomic template and slowing it down 1000%% into a growling crawler full of spacious stabs and scattered snares, deep in the echo chamber. 2023 Osiris Music UK