- Over the past year, the name Kowton has become synonymous with distinctive crossbreeds of techno's measured lope and the brutal geometries of grime. So far in 2013, he's applied this approach to the excellent Raw Code with Peverelist,and "Mirror Song" alongside Julio Bashmore. But solo is where Kowton thrives. What's often striking about the producer's recent work is how provocatively slow it sounds. Sure, he's always displayed a taste for empty space and a determinedly stiff sense of groove, but combined with an increasingly rough, workmanlike sound palette, tracks like "Des Bisous" and "Jam01" become lumbering weapons—dance floor tools that bludgeon you into submission.
"TFB," released on young Glaswegian label All Caps, finds Kowton at his most direct and aggressive. All the familiar sonics are in place—ugly, distorted kicks and claps; octave-leaping strings; armloads of sub-bass. But the track makes literal the style's debt to grime: it's been described as an "ode" to Ruff Sqwad's "Raw To The Core," and it shares the same galloping sense of propulsion, stark on-off dynamics and eyebrow-singeing bass stabs. Karenn seem like a shoo-in for the remix, given their similarly aggressive tendencies. But the duo's remix doesn't quite reach the original's intensity, preferring to stomp along to its own diabolical tune, all scorched synth work and hi-end drone. It's a solid effort, but the real hero is the original.
TracklistA TFB
B TFB (Karenn Remix)