R-Zone – Onefourone
Utter anonymity began as the calling card of the Global Darkness-spawned R-Zone series, and as fun as it is to try and play the perpetual guessing game of discovering which one of your favourite artists contributed the latest slab of wax on the Netherlands-based label, the series has long moved beyond needing any kind of gimmick. 2013 provided nine lightning-paced releases from a bevy of internationally renowned producers, and 2014 seems to be intent on matching that frantic productivity.
Hot on the heels of the atmospheric and the spacious moodiness of the Visions of a Deep Web release, R-Zone 13 sports three cuts that flex a good amount more muscle. Opener “Onefourone” sounds as if it dragged Shed’s breakbeat rhythm on “Fluid 67” through a pit of mud, almost bringing the rhythm to a complete halt with it’s grim chords balanced out by energetic, echoing percussion. Structurally, there’s nothing shockingly unique here – but when the booming drums of the track’s climax kick in with just a minute remaining, it’s deeply satisfying.
The opening seconds of “Gravity” evoke that feeling you get when the bottom of your stomach lurches and drops; that palpable discomfort that comes when you peer over the edge of a skyscraper, or feel as if the turbulence on your flight might be the thing that brings you down into the middle of the ocean. Whirling hoover vacuums tighten their asphyxiating grip on the track for the first three minutes and then loosen their hold just long enough to allow the patchy, buried drums to eke out a few static-filled loops before coming back in, enveloping everything in a suffocating chokehold.
Exotic avian wildlife has been somewhat of a theme for house tracks in 2014, it seems, with R-Zone’s “Stolen Birds” taking a cue from Ajukaja & Andrevski’s Rare Birds release on Levels earlier this year. Oddly, the tracks share more than a name – both sport dissonant chimes in the background and semi-improvisational structures. But R-Zone’s tempo is much faster and harder here, hammering out a lurching, groaning synth line while a chorus of oddly feathered creatures coo and cackle in the background. It’s an enjoyable four minutes, but with a name like “Stolen Birds”, this writer was expecting something on par with R-Zone 5’s “Jungle Raver” in terms of conceptual cheesiness.
Regardless, there’s plenty to choose from here, or to analyze for production-style similarities if that’s more your bag. Despite cycling through a number of different names over the last year, one thing stays consistent about the R-Zone series: They get in, do their job, and get out of there, even if it leaves dancefloors none the wiser.
Brendan Arnott
Tracklisting:
A1. Onefourone
A2. Gravity
B1. Stolen Birds