Reso X Rasp-5 - Steep Tech [EXCLUSIVE PREMIERE]

Lyrical hip-hop and raw electronic production have a key-turn relationship; The voice is the driving force atop the bedrock that is the track, and there’s virtually no limit to ways in which this relationship can and has been exploited with powerful effect. The UK progeny Reso comes from a decades-long background of experimentation and a bleeding-edge production ethos, merging his brolic style with countless genres and motifs. New York’s Rasp-5 meets his aggressive gait from the other side of the spectrum, transitioning from a background in traditional hip-hop compositions to a virulent and impactful lyricist directly at the center of a new marriage between bass-driven beats and narrative-driven songwriting. Combining their talents for a trans-Atlantic sonic dive, The Rust is incredibly excited to host the premiere of Reso and Rasp-5’s latest minted collaboration, “Steep Tech”.

The Rust Music · Reso X Rasp-5 - Steep Tech [EXCLUSIVE PREMIERE]

The usual combination of hip-hop and bass music ingredients would have choice lyrical cuts atop a polished, synth-laden backing track, but we’re dealing with two musicians with a focus on novelty; eschewing the safer blends of jazz or trip-hop instrumental arrangements, “Steep Tech” offers an exceptionally grungy interpretation, fusing dissonant tones and the bright tails of steel-coated drums for an industrial impact. Rasp-5’s wordplay and playful call-and-response between bars rest between each sharp transient, pushing the track in parallel with its percussive underbelly. With a keen ear for leaping across territorial boundaries, Reso and Rasp-5 successfully showcase the evolving dynamics of lyrically-driven productions, keeping listeners on their toes, and our heads spinning on a perpetual swivel.

FOLLOW Reso: Soundcloud / Bandcamp / Spotify / Facebook

FOLLOW Rasp-5: Soundcloud / Spotify / Facebook

Maru Blends Rhythm & Melody on Small Sips LP

In June of 2018, Reso unveiled his dusty alter ego, Maru, switch-hitting between his usual low-end driven music and a foray into faded beats and lo-fi chord progressions. Combining forces with Slug Wife, the first official Maru release was Whack Lack Vol. 2. It was a gratuitous dive into the head-nod headspace, and a change of pace for long-time fans of Reso’s catalog. This time, he’s self-released a sophomore Maru LP of dewey bumps and aqueous frequencies, affectionately entitled Small Sips. 

With a total of nine full compositions and a single interlude, Small Sips features a wide array of flavors, blends, and topical variations of lo-fi hip-hop. It’s compositionally rich from start to finish, showcasing extensive arrangements and a spot-on cadence on each and every song. The engineering across the album is particularly alluring, and given Reso’s enduring tenure as a veteran producer, not at all surprising. It provides a degree of fidelity that is often an afterthought for a genre that is focused on all things raw and unpolished in music.

“Lay Off the Sauce” opens the album with a sensual cruise through mottled chords and reverberant breaks. There’s a distinctly dreamy quality to the chord phrasing throughout the song, with each note relationship bending between harmonic and dissonant. Detuned synthesizers populate the melody, endlessly drifting to and from that harmony and dissonance. Like a casual smoker’s cough, the song is puzzling and familiar all at once.

Channeling hazy jazz and a libidinous attitude, “Maple Sizzurp” is a stereophonic bump in every way. Washy chords fill the horizontal stereo space, soaking the listener in phased-out minor and harmonic phrases. The percussion echoes across that same space like a drum kit in the subway; hollow, spacious, and with just the right amount of fade. The distinct view of urban skylines and haphazard crosswalks takes a hold of the mind as the song goes from end to end, showcasing the storytelling and emotional depth that is Small Sips’ strongest asset. 

“Donbury Island” winds down Small Sips to a satisfying finish, lowering the tempo and lowering the energy output in tandem. The track is a gentle composition, with pulsing synthesis slowly easing in and out of the mix. There’s a droning, ambient quality to the sound design filling the melody. It’s all carefully wrapped in a blanket of analog dust, with white noise filling in every pore and edge left open in the arrangement of the tune. There’s no real point of tension, it’s just a quaint float through Maru’s aural universe.

Given Reso’s extensive history with filthy bass music, there is a heightened appreciation for the Maru project. It’s not a dumping ground for small bumps and half-baked productions that don’t fit a motif; It’s a full immersion into a different songwriting philosophy. Small Sips is a detail-oriented exploration of soothing tones and broken-beat serenades, all carefully mingled and balanced to a striking clarity. We’re unsure when the next Maru machinations will find their way into the public realm, but there’s more than enough material to keep us satiated in the meantime.

FOLLOW Maru: Soundcloud / Bandcamp / Facebook

Reso - Sandrock EP

Amidst the aural chaos and calamity of Slug Wife’s ongoing invasion of the United States, the label continues to put out top-tier sound system slappers. Their most recent offering is Sandrock, an EP from long-time label collaborator and frequency freak Reso. It’s filled with pulverizing low-end, naughty rhythmic jaunts, and flexible dance-floor compositions. This release actually marks the second full year of Slug Wife’s existence, and there couldn’t be a better set of tracks to commemorate the occasion.

Sandrock is replete with all of the guttural synthesis and slanted hip-hop rhythms that Reso fans have come to expect in the past few years since the producer’s relative departure from drum and bass. Gut-busting bass lines and meter-slamming downbeats dominate the record, while augmented melodies and brain-tickling glitch artifacts paint a foreboding background. “Flexible Neck” opens the record with drizzling arpeggios and sharp-clawed stabs. All throughout the track, an impending sense of a hammer pounding a proverbial nailhead is created through clever pitch modulation and percussive elasticity. Amplifying the pure rhythmic power of the EP, “Gastroplaz” takes things in a particularly slimy direction. Bandpass filters blast across the frequency spectrum, juicing up those especially nasty bits of low-end in between bouts of wild FM modulation.

Kicking the tempo up just a notch, “Chuckin Up” scoops the mid-range and flashes between monstrous sub movements and high-end pulses. The staccato percussion and juggled arrangement flip the track inside out, upside down, right-side up, and every direction in between in a break-neck dash for the speaker cones. Closing out the record, “Loshun” opens up with lush minor chords over a cascading drum line. Ramping up the energy for an appropriate climax, the evolution of textures resolves into a cornucopia of bass weight and jazz modalities, setting the record straight on Reso’s musical vision.

With each successive release, Reso reminds discerning listeners why he’s earned such a vaunted place in the wider world of bass music. Influencing younger producers on both sides of the Atlantic, he’s a highly sought-after agent of the low-end not satisfied to rest on his laurels. There’s many opportunities to catch Reso this summer, including a headlining performance at the Mercury Lounge hosted by The Rust Music on June 22, as well as plays at Camp Bisco and Disc Jam.

FOLLOW Reso: Bandcamp / Soundcloud / Spotify / Facebook

The Rust Presents: Reso at Mercury Lounge

Maru - Whack Lack Vol. 2

Like well-tuned clockwork Slug Wife continues to shoot out releases faster than we can tire of listening to them. This time around they're presenting a markedly different platter than their mainstay meals. The Whack Lack series could hardly be more opposed to the usual vicious and braggadocios neuro-hop shenanigans. Strip away the high-fidelity mastering, high-octane bass lines, and frankenstein sound design and what you are left with is pure, unadulterated beats and melodies. As they describe it, Whack Lack is "focusing on the right hook with the right beat and nothing more." Whack Lack Vol. 1 was curated by Slug Wife label head Seppa, and revealed a musically playful side of the producer not often explored. For Whack Lack Vol. 2, the gastropods tapped once more into the creative font of the dnb titan Reso who branded himself as Maru for the sake of differentiating the projects. 

Maru cracks right into the spirit of lo-fi hip hop with the ease of someone who's been slicing samples and cutting beats for a lifetime. The collection of tracks features all manner of soundscapes, moods, and atmospheres that are as droning as they are hypnotic. All the potential fanfare is left behind in favor of a pleasured palette of smooth synth hymns and dashes of liquid tonal modulation. 

"Easy Now" is the first true track on the album. It absolutely lives up to its namesake with a particular flair for the melancholy. The melody rides softly on a bedrock of more than a few choice drum hits. A small serving of horns break the steady trance of the track midway only to fade off, overpowered once more by that familiar, muffled lead line. "Single Malt" raises the medium to a modest head high, like the first hit of a well-crafted joint sending one straight to their happy place. There's a sense of weightlessness generated by the fluttering key samples. Note conversations fold over one another like melodies rolled into a torus, and therein lies the source of such a stratospheric aural space.

"After Eight" sputters and shuffles like a delinquent kicking up dust on their way to a late-night rendezvous. Moody chords keep the gaze low and locked on the road ahead, while casual instrument samples preclude any sense of monotony. Keep your ears wide open and you might even catch a few tasty fills that rock the rhythm harder than a New York City pothole rocks a taxi. Closing out the album is "Twilight", and there couldn't be a more appropriate fit. The first touch of those creamy tones bring forth the familiar experience of waving goodbye to a dear friend. It's the kind of atmosphere that leaves the tongue tasting more sweet than bitter, but with just enough longing that you might have to start the whole record over again.

Pushing unfamiliar content through channels established for particular soundscapes can be a questionable bet, but the gamble paid off in full for Slug Wife and Maru. The curation of these "battlewax" collections are a fresh interpretation of a deeply rooted musical underground, and fans of the typical Slug Wife offering are sure to find a delicious reprieve from the norm inside Whack Lack Vol. 2. Considering how tasteful this assortment of lithe beats is, one hopes Maru will stick around a bit and continue to cook up crisp servings of lo-fi goodness.

FOLLOW Maru:  Soundcloud   /   Facebook

Reso - Kyrios EP

Coming right back to the batting cage after a release just two weeks ago, Slug Wife is sending off another heavy hitter worth its weight in bass. The tenured low-end alchemist Reso has provided six tracks for his Kyrios EP, each with their own evolutionary soundscapes and aural experimentations. Reso has spent the better part of the past six years making a name for himself as a purveyor of all things novel within the ever-changing boundaries of bass music. Consequently, his high-polished neuro palette is right at home with Slug Wife. 

Kyrios is particularly noteworthy because the perceived depth of sound expands as you continue to listen over time. The overall scheme of the EP track to track is intentionally similar, with it’s boisterous bravado and synthesizers that slap like a knock out in the octagon. Sink your teeth deeper than the surface level, however, and what awaits below is the dynamic layering of percussion, audio artifacts, idiosyncratic melodies, and research leftovers. There is a motif of thematic cacophony across the EP that has become a staple in neuro stylizations which want to be more than just imposing, aggressive tracks.

The first track “Artifice” hits square in the chest like a sledgehammer. It builds up quietly, and with no fanfare. Half a minute in, the slight tickle of the sub signals the impending frequency violations, and before you know it you’re getting tossed back and forth by a maelstrom of full-bodied cuts. The track eschews dynamic growth in the composition to make way for small but constant shifts to the design of each tone and texture.

“Loaf Eye” creates a rest in the intensity of the EP’s flow. The track slows things down just a pinch to line up right with the perfect head-nod pocket. Rehashed granular textures float in and out of the mix, following steady sub rhythms and a driving percussive march. The tonal expansion follows an exponential curve, with the shredded phenotypes and low-end sound design taking on harsher edges as the song follows its composition.

“Sleazy” is without question the most impressive of the pack. Rocking a steady tempo with enough air to breathe, the song juggles zig-zagging melodies and criss-crossed stabs of high powered bass frequencies. The rhythm falls over itself and turns back around on a dime, flipping kicks over snaps over snares with an upright bounce. The track develops gradually and presents a constant cascade of resampled synthesis, slowly phasing into simulacrums of the underlying waveforms.

The assured quality that Slug Wife delivers with each successive release is something akin to the sun rising each morning. Couple that quality guarantee with a titan like Reso, and the results level the competition almost every time. As always, those mutated gastropods have their finger on the pulse of cutting edge electronic music and sound design pioneering. The calibre required to receive their stamp of approval is no less than top flight, and Reso smashed all the marks six times over with the Kyrios EP. Keep your senses sharp and focused on these slimy slugs from across the pond, because the next neck-breaker is probably right around the corner.

PURCHASE THE KYRIOS EP HERE

FOLLOW Reso:  Soundcloud   /   Facebook   /   Twitter