Since he first emerged ten years ago under his Spatial alias, London-based electronic producer and Infrasonics label boss Matt Spendlove has shifted away from his earlier more dubstep-oriented work, towards a seemingly constantly mutating sound that continues to morph between grime, bass music and stripped-down techno.
A few months on the heels of his debut album ‘A Music Of Sound Systems’, this latest 12” EP ‘Netz Room’ on UK label Never Ready offers up two new Spatial tracks, alongside two remixes on the flipside. Title track ‘Netz Room’ kicks things open like some huge prowling mechanical beast as harsh distorted broken snares get splattered like paint against evil-sounding bass synths and all manner of rave-y melodic stabs, the mechanical percussion that threads itself in amongst the spidery beats calling to mind the unlocking of a gun mechanism, before huge blocky bass pads start to bleed into fuzz.
The other new track here, ‘Hut 6’ opts for a completely different direction entirely, taking things off on a ten minute long 4/4 techno excursion that pits a clanking monotonous groove against bursts of static and filtered dubbed-out tones that seem to bounce off the relentless gathering bass, before waspy distorted synth lines start to worm their way out of the woodwork.
On the flipside, J. Tijn’s remix of ‘Netz Room’ rewires things towards polyrhythmic breakbeats that sit somewhere between UK garage and footwork, the metallic snare runs rattling against a yawning void of vast distorted sub-bass growls, before Munstac’s reworking opts for ghostly shuffling techno atmospheres, as throbbing sub-bass kicks and crunching digital noise layers descend into one of the eeriest breakdowns I’ve heard in a long time against spooky metallic tones. While they’re both certainly strong reworkings, they don’t quite manage to eclipse the original mix in terms of fire power.
