- Deep Medi Musik has spent the last two years signing some of dubstep's most promising producers. Kahn, Gantz, Commodo, Compa, Kaiju—together they form a new vanguard for the genre. Of all these producers, Kaiju, two Brits called Jamie Schildhauer and Paul White, might be the most traditionalist. Taking their name from a genre of Japanese monster movies (think Godzilla), their music is appropriately huge, and rooted in the Kryptic Minds school of dubstep: gleaming techno textures, knife-edge percussion and screw-faced bass wobbles, all tempered with a sleek sense of space and dynamics. They're masters of subtlety and invention in a form that otherwise focuses on the dark, punishing and repetitive.
On their debut album Seven Sins, Kaiju don't push the boat out too far. In fact, with just seven tracks, the LP follows in the footsteps of Kahn, Commodo & Gantz's Volume One release, highlighting a few good club tracks instead of delivering a full-on album experience. (The Biblical theme doesn't really go beyond the track titles.) The duo sharpens their attack, letting their drums swoop in huge arcs and land with a quaking impact. "Pride," with its robust drums and Distance-style LFO throbs, sounds like it was made out of samples from an extreme metal track. But even when dealing with a sound like that, Kaiju are rarely macho or aggressive.
"Greed," with its sparse dub FX, or "Wrath," with its backwards drum samples, put novel twists on dubstep's formula that could easily go unnoticed. Kaiju are good at making a big difference with little techniques. Check the way the drums feel slightly off on "Gluttony" (a collaboration with Gantz) like everything's been pushed just a few centimetres askew.
In concentrating on detail and leaving so much space in their music, Kaiju stick to what they know best, choosing refinement over risk. Only the vocal tracks that bookend the record gesture towards anything more ambitious, but they also feel unnecessary. Opener "Envy" has a seductive, elusive beat that turns humdrum underneath Jack Gates's try-hard soulful singing. The Total Science & Riya collaboration "Lust" is a missed opportunity—Kaiju keep the drum & bass duo's influence to a minimum and inexplicably slow down Riya's beautiful voice until it sounds like a generic sample. But between those tracks is some of the finest dubstep around. It's exactly what you'd hope for from a label like Deep Medi Musik, which keeps itself fresh by finding new perspectives on well-trodden ground.
Tracklist01. Envy feat. Jack Gates
02. Greed Final
03. Pride
04. Sloth
05. Gluttony feat. Gantz
06. Wrath
07. Lust feat. Total Science & Riya