Liquid Stranger - The Arcane Terrain

I've been a fan of Liquid Stranger for a while. He is quite a mysterious character. hailing from Sweden, he claims to have little interest in listening to music, aside from his own presumably, and that his main influence is the music from early computer games. In his early works you could hear this clearly but his albums managed to cram in styles such as ambient, jazz, dubstep, psychedelica, reggae, dub, and dancehall.

The Private Riot

His previous two albums, The Private Riot and Mechanoid Meltdown, were almost masterclasses in dubstep. They were both powerful, clean and very tightly produced albums that set very high standards for other dubstep producers to follow. However, his two albums previous to these were more of a dub affair and this is the direction that The Arcane Terrain has returned to.

There is a touch of the Liquid Stranger dubstep sound on this though. The production, is incredibly clear and precise, as good dance music should be and all of Liquid Stranger's releases are. It is slightly heavier than the earlier dub albums, undoubtedly a sign of the dubstep influence seeping through.

In fact, this sounds remarkably like a perfect crossover of his dub sound and that of The Private Riot with the driving and dirty basslines swelling and wobbling, and the heavy and tight drum punching through the mix, both fitting perfectly with the psychedelic sounds swirling around in the background.

The Intergalatic Slapstick, of Liquid
Stranger's dub albums

The second track features some deep and dancehall-esque vocals coming in when the elastic bass cuts out. The mix on this track is so spacious and tight, it really shows off Liquid Stranger's style and skills in making an absolutely banging track with multiple influences and polishing it in to one of the most pleasurable listening experiences you can have, like sweet candy for the ears.

The seventh track, Totem, starts off with some kind of Asian sounding flute before the track goes completely bhangra, Liquid Stranger style of course. The female vocals throughout are beautiful, again the incredible production making everything stand out and shine.

The influences continue to come, quite often in Asian flavours, but all the time fitting well with the dub, dubstep and psychedelic framework. Liquid Stranger seems to be heading in the right direction and getting stronger all the time. This album makes me think of artists such as Shpongle, Infected Mushroom, Ott, Hallucinogen (the dub remixes album) and Younger Brother.

I can't recommend this enough, it has some of the finest dub and dubstep I've heard in a long time. I didn't think Liquid Stranger could top The Private Riot but I think he has done it with The Arcane Terrain . A true masterpiece and a modern classic in my opinion.

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Venetian Snares - Cubist Reggae

I can't say I'm a huge fan of Venetian Snares, I've heard couple of albums but a lot of it is a bit too intense for me. Reggae is the last thing you (or I at least) would expect them to do. But sure enough, they have made some reggae. Well, of a sort.

I doubt very much that many die hard reggae fans would even call it reggae as it is actually more like electro dub than anything else. I suppose it is exactly what you would expect if Venetian Snares listened to a lot of dub and used it as an influence.

It is not even straightforward electro dub. The first track is the only one that really resembles reggae but it is like some futuristic computer-gone-crazy kind of reggae. There are loads of edits and glitches, and only a very vague melodic theme weaved through the track, but also a definite skank and lovely bassline.

There is also a strange and slightly creepy pitched down vocal line, not singing but talking. Towards the end you hear some massive reverbs, typical in dub, and some echoes which remind you that this is some kind of an attempt at dub. I can't imagine how long it took to make this, it sounds like it was started with a regular electro reggae track and then remixed and edited for hours and hours.

The second track is the one that resembles dub the most. It starts with an almost conventional skank and upbeat but quickly descends into glitchy edits again, although this is done with focus and doesn't sound completely out of place or unnecessary. The echoes and reverbs are there but there is also a very dark sound or theme that comes in halfway through the track in a luscious pad breakdown . The track fades out to leave this pad but comes back in again with a vengeance, taking the hyper-editing even further, which actually adds quite a lot of pace and even drama to the track.

The other two tracks on Cubist Reggae go back to a more typical Venetian Snares style with less of the dub and reggae influence, although it is still there, just much less so. I don't listen to a lot of this type of music so I don't have much to compare it to but the last track reminds me of Aphex Twin a lot with the unbelievable hyper-editing and the dark yet beautiful melodies floating behind a foreground of madness.

For me, this is the best music that I have heard from Venetian Snares. As you would expect, it is highly original, genre jumping, intense, and incredibly unusual. If you're a fan of electronic dance music and/or dub then you should check this out.

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Meef Chaloin's sounds on SoundCloud

I couldn't make a blog about music and not promote my own could I?!

Most of the tracks are for free download so please pass by, have a listen and let me know what you think.
Click Here For Meef Chaloin's SoundCloud Page

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