Ottawa-based industrial / dark electronic producer Jairus Khan (aka Adversary) has spent much of the past decade operating amongst the Canadian techno and industrial scenes, with his remixes for the likes of Converter and Iszoloscope receiving considerable international club and radio play, and Khan being asked to provide local live support for touring acts such as Terrorfakt and Adam X. While Khan’ roots may be as a dancefloor DJ however, this debut album “Bone Music’, apparently three years in the making represents a considerably more diverse and atmospheric beast, revealing a side of him that fuses hard industrial rhythms with delicate and ambient to create an effect that’s frequently not dissimilar to foreboding film score music. If opening track “Ancients’ suggests some ferocious BPMs ahead as it relentlessly builds from a tentative opening swirl of phased synths into a hammering fusillade of metallic-sounding breakcore techno rhythms that sear their way across a terrifying backdrop of treated wall-of-sound vocal trails, “Waiting For Gira’ (a veiled Swans reference?) by contrast could almost pass for an instrumental segue outtake from NIN’ “The Fragile’ as it pits a brooding Reznor-esque bass figure with a slowly rising backdrop of massive-sounding tribal drums and eerie, howling guitar wails.
“Friends Of Father’ meanwhile offers a far more ambient and gentle counterpoint, as trailing, heavily phased piano elements drift like smoke over a treacherous backdrop of slow, off-centre sounding steel-plate hiphop rhythms, the entire fusion calling to mind some vast machine slowly powering itself up as ominous orchestral elements begin to waft into the foreground, in what’s easily one of this album’ most impressive offerings. While the predominant focus here falls upon the more downbeat and darkly atmospheric side of things, crunching and distorted breakbeat-driven tracks such as “No Exit’s and the junglist breakbeat fuelled “Number Nine’ see traces of Khan’ DJ roots rising to the surface, a dancefloor factor that’s considerably aided by the excellent bonus remixes courtesy of Tonikom, Antigen Shift and Synapscape. An impressive collection that manages to think well outside the usual darkwave / industrial square, resulting in a consistently inspired listen.
