VA: Experimental Dance Breaks 36
Plastic Sound Supply

Curated by CacheFlowe, Experimental Dance Breaks 36 (we're informed that it's the latest and, ahem, only volume in the series) rolls out sixteen brain-melters that touch down in dubstep, glitch-hop, and all spaces in between. The collection spotlights the work of Colorado-based producers, and convincingly demonstrates that there's no small amount of talent residing in the state. Honduras (“Tristeza Mi Amor”) and C.Db.Sn (“4amcatattaq”) dim the lights for their sweeping ambient-IDM outings, but generally speaking the album is anything but a collection of mellow tunes. Iuengliss's “Jungbeats” strafes jittery breakbeats with arcade firings and 8-bit melodies, Dicrylium brings the thunder to the writhing monstrosity “Will Build A New World With His Giant Mech,” and Equulei's “My Modem Can Beat Up Your Modem” records a collision between modem squelch and skittering breakbeats.

Listeners with a jones for bass wobble will be well sated by disc's end, as tracks by Rumblejunkie (“Wiggleworm”), Movax (“Fragment”), Zeno (“Zenodelic”), and Ale Fillman and Mnuvr (“Wobble Head”) show the producers' deft handling of electro-dubstep. Drop Logik makes perhaps the strongest impression of all with the swinging funk-house of “Absolute Bowns” and the glitch-hop throwdown “Get! Get!” (remixed by Cacheflowe), while Cacheflowe himself weighs in with a dizzying slice of electro-dub slink called “Crunch Dub VIP.” Experimental Dance Breaks 36 kicks out the electro jams with serious purpose and opts for blaze over bucolic almost every time out.

December 2010