- Blackest Ever Black no longer trades in the explicit darkness that typified its earliest releases, instead working with artists who explore these themes with more subtlety—the hazy funereal ambience of Ryan Martin's Secret Boyfriend or the unpredictable musings of Tarquin Manek and Carla Dal Forno. The arrival of Naaahhh, an artist apparently dwelling "somewhere under London," could be viewed as a call back to the label's early days, with Themes revelling in twilight creepiness.
Unlike the sometimes one-dimensional exponents of dark techno, Naaahhh's approach to expressing desolation and despair sounds a lot less forced. There are multiple influences in these five tracks, with aspects of grime, musique concrète and bleep techno bent into abstraction. The standout is undoubtedly "My Theme," which evokes the chilling experience of Demdike Stare's 2010 Tryptych of albums. There's dread but also humour in those drawn-out, shlock-horror strings, pitch-shifted downwards and dragged through a morass of hollowed-out percussion and cavernous subs. Beyond this, the opening track, "Blooz," will resonate with DJs who like to begin mixes on a foreboding note, the track emerging like a thick fog over your senses.
TracklistA1 Blooz
A2 Empty Rituals
A3 My Theme
B1 Neck Devour
B2 Theme