UK dubstep duo Vex’d (real names Jamie Teasdale and Roly Porter) established a reputation for crafting a particularly fearsome and menacing take on the genre with their 2005 debut album ‘Degenerate’, which showed the duo fusing tech-step and grime influences with the sorts of harrowing, apocalyptic atmospheres you’d associate most with Kevin Martin. With the duo’s relocation to respectively different countries meaning that they don’t work together much these days, this latest collection ‘Cloud Seed’ represents an addendum to Vex’d's career, comprised of lost tracks intended for the second album as well as rare remixes from the same era. Given that the duo apparently had little input into the compilation of the tracklisting, it’s astonishing just how cohesively the 14 tracks gathered here hang together, with the resultant dark, steel-plated aesthetic easily matching the likes of The Bug and King Cannibal in terms of sheer thrills and firepower. Indeed, the Warrior Queen-fronted ‘Take Time Out’ conjures up a similar clanking menace to that seen on her recent appearance on The Bug’s ‘London Zoo’, albeit given a considerably more nightmarish slow-motion crawl factor, while ‘Heart Space’ sees majestic orchestral swells playing off beautifully against clattering dubstep snares and vast sub-bass drops as Anneka’s teasing chanteuse vocal adds just the right touch of evil beauty.
‘Out Of The Hills’ meanwhile pushes vast dubbed-out washes of tribal percussion beneath vintage reggae vocal samples and juddering, poisoned-sounding lovers’ rock instrumentation, before ‘Killing Floor’ sets the controls for attack, sending timestretched reggae vocal call-outs spiralling through a barrage of scything distorted synths, machine-gun snares and stomach-churning walls of bass pressure. Despite the abovementioned tracks however, ‘Cloud Seed’ isn’t a collection solely geared towards sub-bass warfare, with some of the most atmospheric moments to be found here arriving virtually without beats entirely, but no less ominous menace. The duo’s previously relatively hard to find reworking of Distance’s ‘Fallen’ illustrates this beautifully, placing mantra-like Sufi vocal tones against a dreamlike backing of echoing percussion tones and muted wobblestep basslines, while previously unreleased takes on John Richards’ ‘Suite For Piano & Electronics’ and Prokofiev’s ‘String Quartet No.2′ see Vex’d offer up unexpected ventures into classical minimalism that hint enticingly at the sorts of territory that lost second album might’ve covered. Still, for a collection of previously unreleased tracks, ‘Cloud Seed’ rolls with a sense of cohesive atmosphere missing on many ‘proper’ albums and offers up a more than fitting epitaph to Teasdale and Porter’s creative partnership.
Chris Downton
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