This collaboration between Kenyan soundscape auteur Joseph Kamaru and industrial dub heavyweight Kevin Martin came as quite a wonderful surprise, as their seemingly unlikely pairing turned out to be a match made in heaven. The unexpected twists do not end there, however, as Martin also persuaded Kamaru to contribute some singing and spoken word passages after being captivated by his lilting voice and "soft-spoken accent." The warmth and humanizing effect of that innovation beautifully elevates Disconnect into something far more compelling than just the collision of two different visions. The dub-inspired format of this release is yet another delightful curveball, as Disconnect has the feel of a maxi-single rather than an album, with the epic "Differences" acting as the killer single that is backed by a darker B-side ("Arkives") and two radically transformed variations of each. The entire release is excellent, but "Differences" in particular stands as one of the strongest pieces in either artist's already revered oeuvre.
The opening "Differences" slowly fades into being with deep bass drones and a slow, simple two-note melody with a long and reverberant decay. Gradually, however, a chant-like vocal loop emerges and the piece slowly blossoms into a rich tapestry of gorgeously textured layers that feels like a sublime and beatless deconstruction of a great Jesu song. It is a perfect marriage of melody and production, as Kamaru's vocal hook is bittersweet and soulful, the psychedelic touches are immersive and spatially mobile, and every note is given plenty of space to linger and be felt. In short, "Differences" is thirteen minutes of pure sonic heaven. Needless to say, that sets the bar quite high for the rest of the album, but revisiting the same raw material two more times is an inventive way to solve such a problem. On the colder "Difference," a slow but insistent kick drum thump carves a path through bleary underground parking garage ambiance, while "Differ" sounds like a spectral, time-stretched, and hiss-soaked deconstruction of Basic Channel-style dub techno.
The album's other major piece is the considerably darker "Arkives," which initially has the feel of a dark ambient elegy but gradually intensifies into a roaring howl of anguish. The central thread that holds it all together is a poetic spoken word passage from Kamaru, which continually drifts in and out, pans around spatially, and undergoes hiss-soaked and echoing textural transformations. For that reason, it makes for haunting and immersive headphone listening, but I actually prefer the two shorter variations due to their more rhythmic nature. On "Ark," the underlying drones of "Arkives" are chopped into buzzing throbs of distortion and gnawed by pulsing washes of white noise, while fragments of Kamaru's spoken word passages drift in and out of focus. Elsewhere, the killer "Arcs" revisits that buzzing pulse, but it feels a lot more spacious and open this time around and the focus shifts far more to the hissing and crackling textures. To my ears, it evokes downed power lines crackling and sparking in the desolate, snowblown aftermath of an intense blizzard.
As far as individual pieces go, the highlights for me are "Differences" and "Arcs," but I am even more impressed with how this album works as a whole. For example, the brilliant opening piece drew me completely into the album, which put me into the ideal mindset for appreciating the beautifully textured, spacious, and shapeshifting nature of Martin's dubwise production magic. I also loved how each piece appeared in three radically different forms. In lesser hands, that would suggest a dearth of ideas or a release bloated with filler, but the transformations are quite inspired here and I was legitimately fascinated by how the same simple components could be reshaped into pieces with very different atmospheres and emotional shadings. In fact, it reminded me a lot of how memories degrade, transform, and dissolve over time, which may very well be by design given the content of Kamaru's spoken word passages. In fact, I suspect that I still do not grasp the full conceptual depth of this album, but all of that is mere icing on the cake, as Disconnect is already a lock for one of the year's finest headphone albums.
