Black Smoke Curls by Anatomist

Aah... an electronic album that rubs my melodic G-spot, feeds my insatiable hunger for tasty Bass rhythms, scratches that persistent Breaks itch that's always so difficult to reach and answers my ever-increasing Dub cravings. In addition to that, it balances melody and tension with poise. There's even a sexy whiff of Jazz in there too. Yeah, sounds like a hodgepodge but it's far from that; it's all so tastefully done. It also advocates the idea that genre cross-pollination should be a precondition for any decent electronic release these days. Mash-ups are the way forward didn't you know?

Anatomist is UK producer Neil Sweet and he's been making his beautiful brouhaha for more than twenty years. Black Smoke Curls is his third full-lengther (all on Machine Records) and consolidates his myriad interests in Dub, Breaks, Dubstep and IDM. And when I say consolidate, I mean he literally employs all the specific genre-traits he's worked with, often in a single track. Take You_re All Punks for instance, a stealthy, gut-busting bass line underpinning spacious, Dubby synth noises and a spooky IDM topline melody with vocal snippets from a detuned radio, all come together like a glorious update to The Black Dog circa Spanners. Opener Mob Mentality ripples in with ghosts of Dubstep that transmogrify into teasing Dub before seducing with a rumbling bassline and slowmo head-nod. My fav is Aqualung, heavy on the Dub and plenty of Bass pressure; top-notch Dub Techno by any other name - the insane riff that first strikes around 3:30 demonstrates Sweet's talent for an earworm!