- Powerful sounds from a vital London drum & bass label.
- Rupture LDN specialises in sleek drum & bass that balances melody, rhythm and sound design. The label is fantastic and its parties are revered. (Playing a Rupture event inspired the jungle veteran J Majik to make one of the best records of his career.) The Planets Series, an ongoing tribute to breaks and jungle that also has an astronomy theme, shows off the label's robust roster. Earth and Mars make for a handy introduction. The two records draw from drum & bass history to showcase the best of the genre.
Earth is the subtler of the two, where breakbeats are woven into more conventional drum & bass frameworks. They're diced into tiny, twitchy pieces on The Untouchables' "Baiana," which revolves around a vocal chant. On Dubmonger's fearsome halftime cut "Varmints," they zig-zag around each bar. J. Robinson's contribution is the kind of half-stepper you'd expect to hear in a set from Sam Binga or Fracture, with wonderfully exaggerated reverb and delay effects.
If you only pick up one of these two records, I'd say Mars is slightly better. Where Earth is restrained, Mars goes all-out, each track outdoing the last. The junglist attack of Double O's "Martian Soil" is pure nostalgia. Effra's Amen-happy "In Breaks We Trust" is even bigger, with an LFO bassline that drills into your body. There's even a sprinkle of drumfunk on Gremlinz & Jesta's "Recourse," whose stiff and compressed drum sounds make for the most forceful sound on either EP.
TracklistEarth
A1 The Untouchables - Baiana
A2 J. Robinson - Congoman
B1 Dubmonger - Varmints
Mars
A1 Double O - Martian Soil
A2 Gremlinz & Jesta - Recourse
B1 Effra - In Breaks We Trust