Since 1996, Dutch electronic producer Noel Wessels has been one of Holland’s most distinctive and prolific figures, releasing hardcore as one half of The Outside Agency alongside Eye-D, venturing further into downtempo sounds with his Semiomime partnership alongside Slacknote, and also exploring the thin boundaries between drum and bass and breakcore on his own as DJ Hidden. Three years on from his critically acclaimed debut album as DJ Hidden ‘The Later After’, this impressive follow-up on Ad Noiseam ‘The Words Below’ sees Wessels continuing to ply a dark, cinematic path that fuses sharp rhythmic attack beautifully with the sorts of sweeping melodic arrangements you’d associate with a particularly frightening film score. The opening ‘Prologue’ vividly sets the scene that lies ahead, as an eerie wash of dark ambience worthy of an ‘Alien’ film score slowly gives way to doomy slow-motion industrial rhythms and clanging percussion – the entire track calling to mind some massive dark machine slowly rousing itself from sleep.
From there, ‘The Traveller’ sees hammering industrial hiphop rhythms locking down around an epic wash of lush, melodic pads, offering a false sense of comparative calm that’s shattering by the sudden chaotic descent down into breakneck junglist rhythmics and growling swells of sub-bass. The spectacular ‘Drawn In’ meanwhile foregoes the straight-ahead ‘Amen’ loaded attack in favour of a more intriguing and hypnotic slide through spidery, clicking hi-hats and sinister minor-key arrangements (though there’s still a sudden acceleration into breakbeat fury towards the second half), while the gorgeous ‘The Dreamer’ easily offers one of this record’s most anthemic highlights, slowly building gracefully understated tension with its icily elegant synth arrangements, before tossing the listener down into a wall of clattering, hyperaccelerated drum breaks and horror movie atmospherics that’s easily one of the most violent passages to be found here. Matching the levels of excellence seen on ‘The Later After’ was always going to be something of a tall order, but with ‘The Words Below’, Wessels has managed to do just that, resulting in an impressive album that’s beguiling and malevolent in equal measures.
Chris Downton
