Acre & Filter Dread – Interference
The dark can make structural forms invisible, altering our sense of perception. Blackness sometimes also enables an atmosphere of creation. You don’t see anything, but you can imagine everything. Individually Acre and Filter Dread have created sinister, fierce and frayed music caught between grime, techno, and UK garage and continue this path together on their first collaborative release, Interference. In case it is too dark in the club to see your hands in front of your face you will at least feel your body with these tracks.
The 12” is also the first release on the new label Codes, a collaboration from PAN boss Bill Kouligas and Visionist which essentially reboots the latter’s Lost Codes. It makes perfect sense for Acre and Filter Dread to join forces here as both had solo releases on Lost Codes. They also both make music that is hard to pinpoint, working with brusque sounds which clearly carry characteristics of the machines that gave birth to them.
Acre and Filter Dread renounce digital, hyper clean sound design for a hands-on lo-fi approach which gives the drums and synth sounds a muffled feel reminiscent of old rave tapes and their over emphasis of the lows. This lends Interference a certain DIY attitude. “Flash Speed” develops brutal energy with its rich percussion, ramming kicks and echoing snares, whilst “Trashed” comes across as a ghostly hybrid of grime and electro with harsh claps and uncanny, haunting sounds. “Life” sends out frightening rave synthesizers and shrieking bells over a weird and shape-shifting beat.
The overall atmosphere is claustrophobic without ever giving a concrete feeling of losing ground. The rolling dancehall-meets-grime track “Unknown” transports on the contrary power to go mindlessly crazy and “Blood Artist” takes up speed with rhythms from UK garage and electro. Oppressive synthesizers build suspense that has hypnotic yet body-rattling effect. Interference sees Acre and Filter Dread present a strong collage of industrial bass-heavy music with the capacity to tear your face off. Music for a sinister rave. A dark place you can transcend confining borders and gain freedom – at least musically or emotionally.
Philipp Weichenrieder
Tracklisting:
A1. Drumz 34
A2. Flash Speed
A3. Trashed
B1. Life
B2. Unknown
B3. Blood Artist