Vivek - Pulse / Roots (Deep Medi)

Vivek - Pulse / Roots (Deep Medi) - buy on boomkat

Proper hefty steppers from Mala's Deep Medi music that come on like MRK1's first forays into dubstep. Crawling from a mess of dial tones, bleeps and distorted voices, Pulse kicks in with an armour-plated combination of warping bass and massive snare smashes that's almost distressingly claustrophobic. Admittedly, this kind of lead-heavy 'step has waned in popularity following dubstep's rise to mainstream ubiquity, but Vivek manages to avoid lapsing into predictability by channeling a dank, industrial vibe and conjouring up a paranoid landscape of tapped phones and whispered secrets. It could be a topical jibe at rat bastard Coulson and the 'Screws mob, or an homage to Coppola's classic The Conversation, either way, it's a brilliantly menacing combination. Roots is, unsuprisingly, a warmer and brighter number, a sweaty mix of writhing bass, half-timed tribalisms and distant woodwind trills. Nowhere near as tooth-rattlingly heavy as the A-side, Roots is heavier on the dub, with a rich, tribal sensibility, filtered through the grit and grime of the urban UK.
It's not the greatest piece of wax I've picked up, but as club tracks go, it's rich, powerful and effective. I have a sneaky suspicion Roots goes brilliantly into Mala's recent Moritz Von Oswald Trio reshape... gonna go try that now.