Kode9 + The Spaceape — Memories of the Future

Kode9 is the owner of Hyperdub records - the label responsible for releasing the music of Burial. Kode9 also releases his own material and here collaborates with Hyperdub regular the audio/visual artist Spaceape who’s distinctive psycho-reggae drawl can be found on many of the labels 12" releases.

The music is not your standard Dub affair it’s got a technical and lyrical grounding that draws in influences from all over electronic music and more popular styles also, and certainly doesn’t rely on the standard Dub devices of bass, delay and reverb (although these elements are present). Victims is probably the most conventional dub track on the record with it’s thumping baseline and delayed soundFX. The vocal from Spaceape is a typical apocalyptic mass of strange images and Rastafarian references. "Victims themselves are close in contact..desperate abductor, constructor getting infected, vexed by an alien virus so alien so viral."

There are abstract tracks on the record like Nine on which swirling piano, orchestral and crowd noise create an atmosphere of confusion over which the Spaceape recites a mantra of post-modern isolation and hedonism. The album utilises a very wide sound pallet and never gets dull, each track has it’s own distinctive sound, from semi-R+B of Curious to in your face Blip-hop of Portal. There is a tension, almost paranoia that runs though these tracks, it’s technological proficiency hiding a post-industrial isolationism that find dual expression in the lyricism of Spaceape and the disjointed almost out of place audio wizardry of Kode9.
Those into Dubstep will see similarities with Skull Disco’s ethnic minimalist percussion in tracks like Kingstown and Quantum which have just as much in common with contemporary Musique Concrete or even Skinny Puppy’s more sedate moments.

Never dull, offering a surprise round every corner Memories of the Future is a Future dub ground zero which no doubt will spawn many imitators.