- The Samurai family of labels has become beloved for its turn away from standard drum & bass, especially via the adventurous (and excellent) Horo imprint. But one thing that gets overlooked is how great a source of dance floor drum & bass the main label, Samurai Music, still is. It's traditional compared to something like Horo, though never boring or safe. As part of an ongoing effort to streamline things, Samurai folded its other drum & bass label, Red Seal, and relaunched its main platform. They're beginning things with Homemade Weapons, a rising star who exemplifies the Samurai Music ethos: sleek, clever drum & bass that sounds modern but is orthodox enough to play at the average Friday night at fabric.
On Sleep Terror, the Seattle producer pairs with another West Coast stalwart, Sacramento's Red Army. The two go together well. Where Homemade Weapons prefers his beats clean and contoured, Red Army likes to embellish them with big pools of reverb and dramatic chords. The result is drum & bass that feels perfectly sculpted and mysterious. They work with a post-rock level of dynamics and precision. All the drums in "Sleep Terror" and "Cavity" are fastidiously designed, heavy like anvils but never leaden. And the arrangements are so taut they could snap.
The breaks return on "Buzzkill," the EP's strongest track, where they're wielded like a spiked flail. Everything here is primed for attack, but the duo aren't aggressive about it, preferring to marinate in the tension. They tease out exactly what can make drum & bass's utilitarian repetition enticing instead of numbing, which is a good way to describe what Samurai Music does as a whole. Records like Sleep Terror likely won't grab fans of Samurai's more esoteric leanings, but it's not meant for them—this is pure drum & bass of the highest order.
TracklistA1 Sleep Terror
A2 Cavity
B1 Buzzkill
B2 Colony