Sam Binga & Welfare: Conamara Fieldworks
Khaliphonic
Pugilist: Roll Off / Hemisphere
ZamZam Sounds
Operating under the Pugilist guise, Melbourne-based Alex Dickson helps spread ZamZam's gospel with this fine seven-inch, like its predecessors issued in physical form only and in a limited run (700 copies). Also like many a ZamZam release, Pugilist's resists easy pigeonholing, the material in this case occupying a zone spanning dub, garage, dub techno, jungle, dubstep, and even roots reggae. The A's “Roll Off” immediately captivates with its slippery post-techno-slash-garage groove and syncopated locomotion, after which punchy bass pulses, skittering snares, clattering rimshots, and spaced-out bleeps, warbles, and whooshes collide for four action-packed minutes; the trip's so head-spinning, in fact, one could miss entirely the first time the male voice accenting the flow with an occasional shout-out. Cued to a less frenetic BPM, “Hemisphere” plunges deep into texture-soaked dub, the swamp so thick it almost conceals its lurching bass line, echoing guitar figure, and chugging dub groove from view. As great as the swaggering tune itself is, you'll more likely be transfixed by the production design.
An entirely different life-form emerges on Conamara Fieldworks, a five-track collaboration between Sam Binga and Welfare (Cormac McMahon); released on Khaliphonic as a twelve-inch, the release is also only available in a physical form and in this instance a limited 600-copy run. A bit of background clarifies the project's origin: two years ago, Binga and Welfare, having decamped to Conamara, County Galway, Ireland where a friend had lent them an old, isolated cottage by the sea, spent days exploring the area collecting sounds to transform into mutant dub/dub techno-inspired tracks. Equipped with a handheld recorder, the two gathered noises from cave visits and field hikes that were initially turned into workable loops and then developed into full compositions using live desk mixing and effects at a studio. Imagine the already ultra-saturated production design of a Basic Channel or Chain Reaction cut rendered even denser with field recordings of wind, water, and land added to the fabric and you'll have a fair idea of how the five tracks (four originals and a remix) sound. Engrossing in the extreme, the material has an undertow so massive one imagines it could drown a steamship; at the bottom end, there's bass throb; above, ambient-industrial noises and textures loop, their lull obscured in part when field recording details are added. “Muirbhigh” gets two slots, the original a lurching, granular-smeared behemoth and Ossia's re-rub a laser-focused dub-techno workout that feels a tad stripped-down alongside the other heavily textured creations. Such a description has to be put in context, however, stripped-down in this case meaning not drowning quite as much in layers and detail as the originals. Track differences aside, the EP result is never less than mesmerizing.October 2018