Deadbeat - Acid Wash Genes

Deadbeat - Acid Wash Genes (Exone, 21.03)

When Deadbeat launched his BLKRTZ label last year, with the excellent album Drawn and Quartered, it seemed that Scott Monteith was returning to a darker and more downbeat sound, so it's a pleasant surprise to hear him teaming up with Exercise One for a more dancefloor orientated 12". Never straying from his signature dub-techno blend, Monteith leans more on the latter aspect with strongly, well, acidic synths in contrast to his usual valve organ and Basic Channel-inflected sounds, underlain by a solid four-to-the-floor kick. At eight minutes long, everything from the bass to the bleeps is given a solid workout, and there's plenty of DJ tool potential in this solid solid roller. The Exercise One remix does little new, mostly content to blow away the cobwebs and strip the track down to a more straight-up technoid aesthetic. Neither track's really blowing my mind, and in comparison to the rich journey that was Drawn & Quartered, it's somewhat less exciting dub, but solid enough tools from two quality artists.