DEADBEAT - Roots And Wire

This isn't London stuff, it's not dubstep, it's not even techno trash, and it's certainly not deep riding the comeback wave of certain softer sounds. Yet it sits a bit everywhere at once, and if this were a puzzle magazine, I'd give you a rebus with the faces of Moritz Von Oswald and Kode9 rolling a joint together in some metropolis X in some country Y. In short, "Roots and Wire", beyond whatever story they're trying to spin to build hype around it, is a record that cuts right across the contemporary electronic landscape. It lives entirely in the here and now, and will probably already sound dated next year, but predicting the future isn't my strong suit, so I'll just stick to thinking of it, precisely, here and now.

The previous "Journeyman Annual" was indeed a dubstep record, albeit with plenty of caveats, and it showcased Deadbeat's production skills. So he doesn't come out of nowhere: he's paid his dues working hard and has earned the respect of "Berlin's finest", including Monolake, who wanted him alongside them on several occasions. Hence: broken rhythms too, but it's a techno attitude that isn't exactly confined to what's going on inside his own head.

"Roots And Wire" elbows its way in with very little grace, as usual Monteith deploys stunning, vandalistic sounds, a rhythmic forge that rivals that of Konono and which in many places draws on a sweaty physicality unusual for this world. "Grounation (Berghain Drum Jack)" is the apotheosis of everything just described. Tribal percussion that lines up every four beats, electronic inserts ramping up the paranoia, and a hell of congas building to a crescendo. Don't talk to me about dub, because this is decidedly ill-mannered techno, and at the controls we have Guillaume Coutu Dumont explaining the reason behind this exploit (already a b-side, in a different version, on the "Eastward On To Mecca" EP).

You can't go wrong slotting certain songs from this record into certain contexts, since the credits happily feature a name, that of Paul St. Hilaire, whom many will more readily remember as Tikiman. A ubiquitous voice across countless dub-and-related productions, but above all the official vocal cords of the postmodern reggae monster Rhythm and Sound, that is Ernestus & Oswald, that is Basic Channel, that is Berlin. Things don't happen by chance... The opening and closing tracks feature the Caribbean singer on two tracks that are simply flat-out reggae in 2008, with taut synthetic basslines bursting forth, hi-hats embroidering the beat and the typical offbeat gait.

What's most striking, though, is how, years and years on, the Basic Channel method still holds paternity rights over countless things. Deadbeat is one of their stepchildren and so is hardly exempt from feeling implicated, especially when he offers us the eight-minutes-and-eight-seconds of "Deep Structure", in which the little pitch knob of the reggae bass gets turned, quantized, and finally locked inside a cage of nocturnal techno, where the synth modulates for all it's worth and the melody is reduced to a mere scrap let loose. It adds up, subtracts, and plays with the spaces. But it does so with great method. That same method, studied down to the smallest detail, refined over time and then presented with a personal, modern vision that runs through the whole record.

Deadbeat won't blow anyone's mind, but he's someone charting a path of consistently high quality. Only live does he fumble like a nervous wreck, but in the studio he's a heavyweight, and once again he pieces together the parts of the puzzle that others leave scattered about, making it all look remarkably easy. Once again, with "Roots And Wire", he scores in his favour, and we can only give him credit for it.

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26/11/2008