Since he first emerged back in 2001 with his debut ‘110’ 12″, Brooklyn, NYC-based DJ / producer Submerged (real name Kurt Gluck) has emerged as one of the more outspoken voices amongst the US drum and bass scene, with his own Ohm Resistance label earning a reputation for releasing some of the country’s most ferocious hardstep productions. This second album ‘Violence As First Nature’ follows two years on from his 2007 debut collection on Sublight ‘Stars Light The End’ and in many senses acts as retrospective overview of his work so far, collecting together pretty much all of his pivotal 12″ moments alongside collaborations with Impulse, Technical Itch and Bill Laswell. As the title suggests, the 12 tracks gathered here are certainly not aimed at the faint of heart. Indeed, opener ‘Consciousness’ manages to set the prevailing mood for the rest of the album pretty well, with the eerie sweep of sampled horror movie orchestration giving way to nosebleed ‘Amen’ breaks, dark, vaguely electro-industrial bass synth programming and timestretched screams – the entire thing coming across as the sort of thing you’d expect to hear at some junglist party held in an abandoned abbatoir. For the most part, the extreme pace pretty much doesn’t let up for the rest of the album, though ‘Doctored Intelligence’, a collaboration with Bill Laswell sees some refreshing tabla elements making an appearance before Scorn’s reworking of ‘Dirty Bomb’ offers a sidestep into shearing, breakstep-laden industrial textures that ventures a little closer to Techno Animal territory. ‘Violence As First Nature’ offers up an excellent overview of Gluck’s work as Submerged to date that’s made even better with the addition of the second mixed disc – but the less hardcore might want to wear a safety helmet before sticking this on.
Chris Downton
