Drowned By Locals Jordan Vinyl & CDs

Review: Richie Culver's Religious Equipment under the Quiet Husband alias delves deep into industrial techno, weaving a harsh narrative around addiction and suppression. Tracks named after opiate blockers like Methadone and Subutex create a soundscape that blurs the lines between resistance and surrender. Fresh off his live performance at Berlin's Atonal Festival, Culver's debut full-length is built on brutal, repetitive rhythms with spoken word passages slicing through the noise, including one featuring his mother. The title track sets a relentless pace, using noise as a substitute for silence, while 'Punks in the Gym' rises with jagged 303 lines, each bar intensifying the tension. 'Humanoid Fruit' closes the EP, taking you to a darker, primal place where sharp synths feel like ancient echoes.

Review: Ninety Nine Eyes is rooted in an old Takhmira, a Zar ritual poem, and is the result of a three-year "metamorphosis" between studio time and stage performances. In one way of looking at things, it's neither recorded nor live. It exists on a different plain, where it is impossible to figure out what came first or even when. Were the ideas conceived in a premeditated fashion? Or did they emerge in the moment, in front of an audience? This is getting us nowhere, so let's move on. Yunis, if you're not already on-side, is one of Egypt's leading lights of compositions, and here he employees resonant mizmar, the century-spanning rhythms of tombak, ghostly voices of people who may or may not have been there, somewhere, at some point, and the structure of a Sufi Hadra. The result is a two part stunner that begins with a tense awakening, filled with expectation and anticipation. Perhaps even nerves. Then we erupt into a synth-infused ritualistic tidal wave.