DEADBEAT Vinyl & CDs

Review: Scott Monteith returns with his first solo Deadbeat album in five years having recently collaborated with the likes of Sa Pa, Om Unit and The Mole. As ever, Monteith's long-standing dedication to dubwise experimentation drives his music forward on this new set, and there are some welcome threads that run further back in his career. 'Brick Stick Blick Blade (Anger II)' features a vocal flow from Black Noble Oluokun, who first collaborated with Monteith on the 2007 album Journeyman's Annual. That's but one standout element in an album rich with soundsystem immersion and techno propulsion delivered with the meditative poise that we always expect from Deadbeat.

Review: Scott Monteith is the Berlin-based but Canadian-born artist best known as Deadbeat, stepping out with new alias Ark Welders Guild. It is an audio-visual performance and recording project with Italian singer and curator Letizia Trussi, whom he met in winter 2021 and has since formed a strong creative bond. They work in Trussi's Rooms of Kairos studio and have already cooked up two album length pieces that come on Monteith's BLKRTZ imprint. Mons Clepsydra is the first and is an epic drone in four parts with string recordings permeating the moody, grainy, heavy atmospheres.

Review: Depending on your cultural references you will know that Things Fall Apart is either the title of an album by hip-hop greats The Roots, the debut 1958 novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe or Jon Ronson's latest Radio 4 series on the culture wars. Here it is a deeply mystic techno 10" by Deadbeat. Back in July, he worked with Sa Pa on their first collaborative album on the anniversary of BLKRTZ's 50th release and what a stunner it was. Here he casts free and deep into an oceanic abyss with drum-less floating currents and drifting melodies on 'Things Fall Apart' then a more hunched and dynamic dub groove on 'Adieu Chez Cherie.'

Review: Ten years deep, Visionquest continues to be a potent force in field of minimal tech house thanks to releases like these. The latest split release from their VQ X series opens up with the spellbinding, micro dub meditation 'The Serpent & The Jaguar' from Deadbeat before swerving into the equally tender folds of Triptease & Yonatan Levi's 'Amniotic Jive'. Tuccillo opens up the B-side with some crisp, immersive broken beat rhythmic incantations, and then Wareika round the record off with a smouldering piece of hi-tech jazz from the outer rim. This is subtle, elegant minimal at its warmest, make no mistake.