- Drum & bass has been in rude health for quite some time, bubbling away under many people's radar, but only recently have its tropes begun to seep into the wider underground. Fis's debut for Tri Angle Records is to the genre what Burial's Untrue was to dubstep: it bears its imprint, but the relationship is tenuous. Preparations is closer to Demdike Stare's recent marriage of blistering jungle rhythms and decayed textures, and shares its roughened surfaces and unnerving atmospheres with Fis's Tri Angle labelmate The Haxan Cloak.
A spooky, wavering flute line dominates "Magister Nunns," set against a backdrop of clanks and licks of static as the drums beat a ghostly stutter. It feels more like a fragment than a song—unlike the re-released "DMT Usher," which benefits from an identifiable rhythmic framework, but is untethered from a quantized grid. Whirring synths and woodblocks make it sound as though it would work on a dance floor, but this is a track on the periphery of club music. As its title suggests, "Mildew Swoosh" is mulchy and rotten sounding, like dance music exhumed from ancient soil, its quivering percussion and synths coupled with slasher film rasps. "CE Visions" is equally doom-laden, with each filthy kick forcing its way through the murk, as indistinct strings wail and skeletal percussion clacks ominously. Preparations is a singular summary of Fis that's impossible to ignore.
Tracklist01. Magister Nunns
02. DMT Usher
03. Mildew Swoosh
04. CE Visions