- The whole "brostep" controversy in dubstep right now is pretty much what drum & bass has been dealing with for the past fifteen years. At a certain point, techstep turned into a deafening burst of violent energy catering to the some of the same audiences as the wobble-heavy dubstep decried by purists. Entities like Spor and Noisia have represented both the best and worst sides of this sector of drum & bass, able to craft impressively heavy pieces of sound but occasionally stooping to simplistic noise tactics. Germans Phace & Misanthrop have stood resolutely on one side of this divide, building up a catalogue of harsh but intricate bangers with their label Neosignal that feel as much like technological experiments from forgotten sci-fi movies as dance music. The six-track Energy EP is their biggest project since their debut album together From Deep Space, and it's an ambitious one, featuring collaborations with those aforementioned techstep giants as well as Rockwell.
"Energie" ignites with a collage of revving and whirring, a sound so brutally powerful yet fastidious it can't help but recall Amon Tobin's similar feat of sound design ISAM. But even more impressive is when it coheres into a slamming beat, like a belt of spikes surrounding an unstable molten core. This is scorched earth dance music, expressed purely in harshly filtered frequencies that sear and smolder violently. As you might expect, there's little in the way of relent on Energy, but there are pockets of breathing room: the Noisia-featuring "Micro Organism" takes the group's fascination with intricacy and turns up the microscope to 1000x. Elsewhere we've got the downwards-hurtling Misanthrop solo turn "Amboss" and Spor collab "Out of Focus," tracks with basslines that cut through just about anything.
Most eyes will turn towards the Rockwell collaboration "NO!," and it's not a disappointment: Phace forms a sinewy foundation around one of Rockwell's usual sleekly streamlined beats. The combination of quivering midrange fracture and needlepoint precision is thrilling. That word—thrilling—is the common theme on Energy. Escaping the single-minded inanity of so much aggressive music, Phace & Misanthrop prove themselves adept again at mincing the monstrous with the mature.
TracklistENERGY EP - Part I
E Phace & Misanthrop - Energie
N Phace & Noisia - Micro Organism
ENERGY EP - Part II
E Misanthrop - Amboss
R Phace & Rockwell - NO!
ENERGY EP - Part III
G Phace & Misanthrop - What's Wrong
Y Phace & Spor - Out of Focus