Since they first emerged back in 2009 with their debut album as Fujako ‘Landform’, Brussels-based electronic duo Jonathan Saldanha and Nicholas Esterie have explored the more experimental side of hip hop and bass, whilst working alongside a range of different MCs. While their most recent preceding ‘Soul Buzz’ EP saw the duo exploring more dubby territory, the eight tracks collected on this latest EP ‘Exobell’ see them enlisting the vocal skills of guest MC Black Saturn for a collection that’s oriented far more towards harsh stripped-down hip hop. ‘Warrior Drum’ kicks things off an ominous crawl through slow, steel-plated hiphop beats and eerie ambient tones that calls to mind the likes of The Bug or Techno Animal as Black Saturn’s spoken lyrics sit high in the mix, the mounting tension in his delivery matching the gathering sense of claustrophobia, before ‘Ironlion Ovfdbck’ strips right back to just a punching MPC beat pulse and squealing turntable interjections, while Black Saturn’s vocals get squeezed through all of sorts of digital processing as he repeatedly rants the title phrase as if fighting against some machine.
Elsewhere ‘Sidewalkstate Ov Mind’ offers up a hyper-dense rush of clattering, off-centre hip hop rhythms, rapid-fire stream of conscious lyrical flow and ricocheting, dubbed-out backing vocals that calls to mind a slightly less aggressive Death Grips or perhaps more of Anticon’s heavier moments, before ‘Equations’ sees rumbling tribal percussion locking into place as Black Saturn unleashes some of his most lyrically dense flows against eerie dubbed-out yells and chanting backing vocals, the entire track only barely seeming to hold itself together at points. You can get ‘Exobell’ on cassette, as double 7” set, or as a name your price download from http://angstromrecords.bandcamp.com/album/aep15-exobell
