A founding member of proto-techno band Ike Yard, US-based electronic producer Steve Argabright has been active under his Black Rain alias since the nineties, but his musical career has certainly had more than its share of highlights along the way. As well as collaborating with legendary NYC hip hop figure Rammellzee as part of Death Comet Crew, he was also responsible for writing the dance classic ‘The Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight’, while the mid nineties saw him collaborating with cyberpunk author William Gibson on two ‘lost’ film soundtracks. This latest 12” EP ‘Apophis’ acts as a vague tribute to the asteroid of the same name (apparently now proven conclusively not to collide with the Earth) and sees Argabright collaborating with Italian techno producer Nino Pedone (aka Shapednoise) on four distinctly ferocious and noisy tracks. While Pedone certainly already has his hands full as co-owner of the Repitch label, he describes his new Cosmo Rhythmatic venture as tailored towards the “abstract, noisy and organic”, adjectives all particularly apt for what’s going on here.
‘Metal Home’ sets the scene with dark ebbing bass electronics buzzing like some vast power generator before crunching distorted tones lurch into life, the entire effect calling to mind the reverberation of some huge echoing factory as icy melodic synth notes bleed out elegantly over the rumbling background noise. After this distinctly dark ambient opening, ‘Autonomous Lethality’ sees spidery hi-hats creeping against filtered industrial distortion before steely, almost tribal drum rhythms lock in, accelerating up into treacherously shifting broken patterns as the almost didjeridoo-esque bass growls rise up to meet the beats halfway, only to suddenly be smashed into a burst of white noise. If the aforementioned track calls to mind some huge, irreparably damaged war robot still managing to lurch on, ‘Interceptor’ sees a twitching backbone of shuffling techno rhythms struggling avoid drowning in a tar pit of dark, toxic sheets of industrial distortion, before Miles Whittaker of Demdike Stare contributes a remix of the same track that streamlines things far more towards hammering industrial techno in the vein of Vatican Shadow or Heatsick. Excellent stuff that’s not for the faint of heart.
