Soul Buzz (ANGSTROM RECORDS AEP12) is an oddity of mutant rap electro-terror bass-heavy noise from Fujako, the duo of HHY and RIPIT. Sharp-eyed readers may recall that HHY is Jonathan Uliel Saldanha, the Portuguese composer who regaled us with the surprising murkfest of modern dub Throat Permission Cut LP, noted here. RIPIT is the Franco-Belgian musician Nicolas Esterle, and it seems the two fellows share a mutual love of “echo, bass, and space”…as with the previous LP, we enjoy the warped sci-fi architecture of these studio-based episodes, where the dubby technique of mixage has gone well-nigh insane, building a righteous bass pulse about the size of two elephants which dominates and underpins everything while trampling it underfoot, and vats of spacey echo effect are applied liberally to anything that moves. The additional secret weapon is the rapper Black Saturn from Washington DC, a fellow with many twisted tales to tell, who drops in langourous vocalising that just drips with menace and horror. His voice sounds collaged in and heavily processed; he has allowed his work to be melted into the fabric of this strange, unpredictable music that follows few signposts as it ventures into unknown turfs, and his voice is practically melting too, due to the intense studio treatments it undergoes. Black Saturn should probably rename himself The Incredible Melting Man. The result is a scarifying form of intense avant-garde “illbient” beats and monstrous dub cut with horror-noise vocals, of a type not heard since DJ Spooky or Techno Animal scratched their layered graffiti into the communal walls of experimental breakbeat. Guest vocalist Citizen Ledge adds words to ‘The Preacher’, and there’s some additional drumming from Nah; a jet-black and silver cover design from Saldanha completes the package. From October 2014.
