Wen – Signals
If the press release which accompanies Owen Darby’s debut album for Keysound is to be believed, then Signals gets its name from the producer’s use of vocal samples in the album, each of which is a “signal” in its own right, a “node in a spacious neural network; bursting into the moment only to swiftly retreat.” “Power, locale, identity, intent, inequality, sexuality, gender, diversity, energy” are all supposedly encoded into these transmissions, which, in being sampled from London slang and live pirate radio see the album fitting quite neatly into contemporary bass music’s current fascination for all things nostalgic.
As Darby is one of several young producers looking wistfully at the early culture of grime, dubstep and pirate radio without necessarily being old enough to have been there at the very beginning, the press release for Signals feels a little overblown, but it should be said that Signals doesn’t feel like the kind of bandwagon-jumping that could be levelled at some producers. As part of Keysound’s fresh array of producers, Wen finds himself as part of probably the most knowledgeable group manipulating the history of the hardcore continuum to their own ends. Introductory track “Intro (Family)” sees a sample asking the listener to “big up my family”; it’s something that underground radio listeners (especially those in London) will be familiar with, and underlines Darby’s respect for the scene in the opening minutes.
Darby may only be 22 years old, but the use of samples is deployed in the manner of someone who has been soaking up this culture for years, recomposing vocals to give them new meaning in unfamiliar ways. On “Swingin’ (LDN mix)”, a cut up vocal repeats with a sinister tone: “Your neck should be swingin’ brother”, a threat that may have been offhand banter on radio given genuine malice in the context of Darby’s churning subs, incongrous garage chords and vertebrae-snapping snares. The album’s title track is similarly clever with its meta use of language; placing talk of “exclusives” next to a female vocal saying “you can’t stop this”, it seems to be making a statement regarding Darby’s place within a wider context of similar underground producers exchanging ideas and rebuilding things from the margins.
Despite this, the sample-based narrative attached to this album feels somewhat overstated, with the snatches of dialogue feeling at times more like the incomprehensible transmissions from a numbers station than than a tangibly bustling network of communication. Where Darby does excel is in his production, which although owes more than a considerable nod to grime, is perhaps most like Pangaea than anything else. “Galactic” is practically post-apocalyptic in tone due to its choral pads and savage grime strings, with chest-caving bass that seems to explode from a vacuum. “Lunar” (which features Keysound boss Blackdown) is equally as snappy, a spectral garage rhythm balanced out with a weighty, churning bassline. Like the aforementioned Hessle Audio producer, Darby has a keen ear for the flex and bump of a sparing rhythm and a full bassline, as well as knowing how to balance them with just the depth of melody to keep things from being too self-consciously “atmospheric”. It’s a tricky balancing act, but Darby has got it down to an art, especially on “Vampin'”, where a weightless aura borealis of synths is sucked down to earth by a convulsing bassline.
If there’s one main criticism that can be made of Darby’s productions, it’s that they can perhaps be a little too reverential of days gone by; “Persian” feels a little too much like Pinch’s “Qawwali” or any number of Shackleton productions to feel distinct, while the strings of “In” sound a little too close to something coming from a pirate station circa 2004 to feel like Darby is doing anything quite as distinct as some of his peers. It’s a similar case on “Play Your Corner”, where Riko provides the album’s only full vocal performance, a track that, while proving that Darby can work outside the sample box, could easily be mistaken for a lost white label from any point in the past decade.
Having said that, it feels a little unfair to assess Signals on those terms. It doesn’t share the spectacularly alien take on grime that Keysound’s last full album from Logos did, and for that reason people may find Darby’s approach less striking, but Signals obviously isn’t trying to do anything like what Logos did with Cold Mission. It’s not immediately obvious on a first listen, but what Signals does do is to condense a decade of a musical culture into a very listenable – and danceable – whole, with all the honesty and respect of someone much older than his 22 years would suggest.
Scott Wilson
Tracklisting:
1. Intro (Family)
2. Galactic
3. Lunar ft. Blackdown
4. You Know
5. Persian
6. Swingin’ (LDN mix)
7. Vampin’
8. Time ft. Parris
9. In
10. Signal
11. Nightcrawler (Devils mix)
12. Play Your Corner ft. Riko