Funckarma: Dubstoned EP
Highpoint Lowlife

Dutch siblings Don and Roel Funcken (of Cane, Quench, and Shadow Huntaz renown) take a floor-rattling plunge into dubstep on their latest Funckarma EP and the fit sounds pretty much near-perfect. The brothers' personalized take on instrumental hip-hop has always exemplified a love for all things dubby and bass-heavy so the dubstep-Funckarma hookup is a marriage made in you-know-where. Opener “Stub Dane” douses its blazing slow-funk with flaming synth flares, while “Woodface” serves up a low-slung, slip-sliding shuffle that finds time for a brief side-trip to a parallel galaxy. “Senservice” couples trademark warble and wobble with beats so sharp they could slice a body in two, as does the rather acidy “Flux Leav.” Though beat structures assert themselves, they're sometimes assailed on all sides by electronic strafings hell-bent on derailing their flow (e.g., “Pable Cath”). Befitting the genre, the material's crushing beats are slow but don't drag, and the Funcken's work all manner of mesmerizing detail into the five tracks' mutating shapes. Dubstoned indeed.

July 2008