"With Zhark's first release of 2017 - its follow-up to aces from Casual Violence and Stärker - Kareem takes the reins with Your Markets Are Volatile for a superb session helming to the tenets of production that have served him beautifully well thus far, effectively divining a proper sort of frequency pressure that translates brilliantly over sound systems which are worth their weight, as opposed to the saturated waveforms and in-your-grill intensity favoured by too many other producers to mention.
With only a corner of tongue-in-cheek, his opening statement "My Degree Is A Black Belt" demonstrates his unique approach in bleakest, suspenseful style with a palette of bone-dry drums, viscous subs and tense strings elegantly arranged with nuff space for bony bodies to move within, whilst "There Is No End In The Light Of The Tunnel" coolly defines a core idea of dark techno - it’s about the journey not destination - in pure blank-eyed, slogging and haunting terms.
Turn over and "Your Markets Are Volatile" offers one of his signature steppers, stripped down to grubbing acid grind, whipcrack snares and swirling darkroom voices with loads of fetid air between he grooves, seemingly prepping you for the Vainio-esque halfstep killllller, "Holy Alliance."
Bonus to the digital, you’ll find the hulking trudge of "Approaching Dying Planet At 65,702qms," and the ‘floor-caving subs of "El Pato" hearkening back to his nastiest gear c. 1999-2000, but choking under fathoms of sub-bass weight."
-via Boomkat.
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