Veröffentlicht
May 21, 2014
- There's something about That's Harakiri, the debut album from SD Laika (real name Peter Runge), that feels like the logical progression of where grime has been headed for a while now. When the genre first emerged, full of aggressive percussion and sawtooth waves, it felt like a sound so leftfield, so out of nowhere, that it must have been from the future itself. In more recent years, grime has been constantly reappraised and reinvented. Producers like Logos, Mumdance and Jam City have stripped back its various parts, leaving behind skeletal rhythms and the kind of noises you might imagine soundtracking dystopian science fiction films. That's Harakiri takes it one step further: this is the music of a post-apocalyptic world.
This ambience is created in no small part by the near-constant static hiss across the album, but it's also rooted in something more complex than that. There is little attempt at any structure whatsoever. Sounds slip in and out at random, such as the keys on "You Were Wrong," a creepy ragtime melody that you imagine playing itself on a piano in some burnt out saloon. On "Peaked," the tempo fluctuates constantly, while mangled vocals swell up with no distinct pattern.
Grime is used as a reference point to great effect on That's Harakiri, but there are heaps of other styles from outside that sphere that play a role as well. The madly ritualistic percussion of lead single "Meshes" calls to mind Cut Hands. Industrial techno kicks propel "It's Ritual" relentlessly forward. These are the most dance floor-friendly moments, and they don't stick around for long. That's Harakiri isn't trying to be a dance floor album—it's trying to unsettle the listener. And it's succeeding.
Tracklist01. Peace
02. Great God Pan
03. Gutter Vibrations
04. I Don't
05. Meshes
06. Remote Heaven
07. You Were Wrong
08. Don't Know
09. Peaking
10. It's Ritual
11. Percressing