REVIEW: Clearlight & Sentient - Mandibles EP [DNO Records]
In The Matrix, Neo’s first and last interactions with Agent Smith involves them getting under each other’s skins, in varying forms. In the first instance, a wall of harsh green-lit CCTV screens pulsating with the Matrix code draws us into a room where Neo is interrogated by three agents. As Neo refuses to cooperate, an increasingly belligerent and menacing Agent Smith removes Neo’s mouth and produces a tracking device that animates and takes on a diabolical prawn-like robotic form. We then watch in some horror as it’s placed on Neo’s body, searching for entry points with its elongated and elaborate tentacles, before entering his body through the belly button. When this tracking device is later removed from Neo’s body by Trinity through vacuuming it back through the belly button, the film is clearly channelling Alien where juvenile xenomorphs are ‘born’ by exploding through the chests of the surrogate bodies incubating them. The horrific aspects of these scenes revolve around an idea of an autonomous, possibly evil, other living within us. One that is, at best, indifferent to its host’s survival and often antagonistic and hostile to it.
The opening title track from Clearlight and Sentient’s Mandibles EP on DNO Records builds on this idea of a menacing presence living under one’s own skin. After his little Messiah moment, stopping bullets and whatnot, Neo takes a superman dive into Agent Smith’s body. Before Smith’s body is ripped apart explosively, we see his hands begin to pulsate and ripple as rapidly moving blood clots make a beeline for the brain. ‘Mandibles’ renders this moment in sound, as something rippling through the body, and of the threat inherent in our proximity to an invasive presence that seeks to creep along and violate the boundaries of our skin. It’s as hearing a mosquito hover above your bed at night, or of walking through a spiders web on a summer’s night and frantically cleaning it off and searching the back of your t shirt for spiders (maybe that’s more of an Australian thing). ‘Mandibles’ is a warning of imminent insectoid attack, or one already underway. It’s a piece of minimalist, gloomy, post-autonomic drum & bass imbued with a sense of infection, of a pervasive parasitic presence skittering through the body, running rampant. It’s an itchy, twitching, anxious tune and I just love it.
The next track, ‘Suboptimal’ then continues this theme of insectoid menace, albeit at a much larger scale. In Terry Brooks’ Armageddon’s Children a gang of street kids living in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of Seattle investigate the disappearance of a rival street gang, finding their rivals murdered and mutilated bodies before their own home is attacked by a gigantic, mutant centipede. The central motif of ‘Suboptimal’ is of a similarly giant, mutated monstrosity and of capturing the sound of its lumbering, disjointed movement as it approaches maliciously. As the tune progresses, there is a sense of this monster becoming more tame and regimented, that is, as like the Fremen riding the worms of Dune into battle, its destructive nature is being harnessed and utilised as a form of materiel. To put it differently, we start ‘Suboptimal’ being stalked by a giant insect and by the end there’s an army of them, which is probably worse.
‘Psychodrifter’ is a more subdued affair. As the title may suggest, the mood is quite stoned, of soft focus and leaden eyes, of drifting away into space. The music is gloopy, murky, and the air is heavy. It feels like trudging lost through a foggy swampland of an alien world. It quickens and brightens somewhat towards the end settling into quite a cool little groove, but it’s a tune that weighs down on you, making all movement an effort.
The EP finishes with ‘Kukulu’, and it’s the most intriguing, if not best, track here. It reminds me somewhat of the ‘grey area’ themed music of Sam KDC or ASC of about ten years ago, particularly Sam KDC and tunes like ‘Templar’, given how bleak, ominous and menacing this music is. Not so much rhythmically as ‘Kukulu’ is initially underpinned by a straight 2 by 4 pattern, but more in how the relentless, rolling bells create a dizzying, disorientating swirl of endless dissonance and reverberation. It’s frenetic, insistent, and exhausting music. At the same time, there’s a little twist in the second half of the tune that I’ve noticed a few producers toying with lately. It pops up in the recent Onset Audio 300 compilation in, for example, Owl’s remix of Heft’s ‘Anagram 6’. So if you were to take drum & bass that relies so heavily rhythmically on syncopation and, often, a half-time feel for groove and space then straighten all the drums up and basically go four to the floor, what would happen? Well ‘Kukulu’ does this, and it gets hectic pretty quick. In short bursts it adds an exciting amount of frantic energy, but I hope it doesn’t become too much of a thing as I’m not sure I could handle an hour of it.
I wasn’t familiar with Sentient’s work prior to this release, but have been following Clearlight since his work from around ten years ago with the Nord Label. Alongside artists like Dyl, Ill_K and Owl, releases like the Expedition EP or the Fjords compilation basically pointed out to me that Samurai Horo may not have a monopoly on the spacious, oblique, off-kilter and explorative possibilities of music at 170bpm, and gave me an exciting new milieu of music to explore. And it’s so good to see these guys still making great music. From Owl’s sublime new ambient album Fragments of Darkness on Huinali to Clearlight’s work with Sentient here, the fantastic post-techsteppy vibes of ‘Mandibles’, all glitchy, anxious busyness with the ominous notes of UVB-76 while retaining a great sense of swing and groove. It rules. So does this EP.