It must almost be a rite of passage for every teenage male to spend inordinate amounts of time watching horror movies. At least it used to be – maybe it is pixelated internet porn these days. Anyway, 80s horror movies have proved to be an almost endless mine of samples for the harder end of electronic music, first industrial then gabber, and then drum & bass. Even if often hilariously cliched, when coupled with the appropriate beats and atmospheres, a sweaty club and a wall of bassbins, the ‘cartoon apocalypse’ can be not only engaging but exciting.
I first heard DJ Hidden on the two rather Killing Sheep compilations out of Newcastle, Australia. Hidden isn’t from Newcastle though, he is a Dutch DJ and The Later After is his debut album for Ad Noiseam. Even though for the most part this is relentless brutalist dark drum & bass I was surprised by the rather diverse selection of sounds on offer. There are plenty of speaker tearing, floor burning blistering drum & bass tracks complete with horror and sci-fi movie samples and mentasm rips, but these are balanced by more ambient and half speed breakdowns. The opener ‘Death Seer’ and ‘Ghost Breath’ balance the post-techstep beats with splintered kicks, quick time time-stetches, and a jittery energy. ‘Here Lies The Confusion’ and ‘Backwards Reversal’ both work with half speed beats jumping to double speed between breaks. ‘Scry 7734-5335-345’ and ‘Straightjacket’s round out the album with more splintered beats and nasty rinsing scything stabs.
Sample MP3s at Ad Noiseam.
