If it seems like Cincinnati, Ohio based breakcore producer Enduser (real name Lynn Standafer) has been relatively quiet of late, it’s because he’s taken a year-long hiatus from the studio in favour of concentrating on his live show. This four track EP on Ad Noiseam sees him breaking the recorded silence and offers up his first new material since 2008′s ‘Left’ album on Ohm Resistance. Consistently present throughout all four tracks on offer here is the feel of more gentle, even dreamy melodic elements being placed alongside the more expected breakcore arsenal of hyperaccelerated drum breaks and distorted synths, resulting in a collection that trades equally as much in grace as it does sheer power.
Opening track ’2/3′ vividly illustrates this overarching aesthetic from the very outset, fusing a yearning female vocal and swooning synths with ferocious volleys of serrated breakcore rhythms and divebombing distorted synthlines to a point where the underlying chaos feels contained and sculpted – indeed, for a breakcore-oriented outing, it makes for a surprisingly serene listen. ‘Death Vest 09′ runs with the same themes, balancing out a chunky backbone of dancehall rhythms with angelic, delayed-out soul vocal harmonies before sending things straight down into a yawning abyss of contorted, timestretched breakbeats and buzzing, doomy synth bursts, before ’1/3′ sends twinkling synth plucks sliding beneath a barrage of mutant darkstep junglist beats and sawtooth riffs, leaving Cardopusher to close things off with the sort of lumbering, armour-plated dubstep you might associate with Vex’d on his tasty reworking of ‘Interruption 4.’ Characteristically classy stuff.
Chris Downton
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