Headhunter
Nomad

Is it possible to mix the warmth of Jamaican dub with the coolness of Detroit techno? Apparently, yes, and Nomad by Headhunter is tangible proof of this.

The influence of Caribbean sounds was already strong in the '90s: genres like jungle and downtempo, for instance, owe much to the atmospheres made famous by King Tubby or Lee "Scratch" Perry. This time, however, we are dealing with a strange hybrid between techno and dubstep, a bridging album that connects the two sides of the Atlantic, placing itself halfway between the United States and a globalized United Kingdom.

The author of this experiment is Antony Williams, a producer from humid Bristol and fresh off Initiate, a five-track EP that highlighted his significant abilities a year earlier in 2007.

Nomad is the first and only LP by the British headhunter. It is released by Tempa, a leading label of the late 2000s dubstep sound (its roster includes figures like Skream, Benga, and Horsepower Productions). It's a very original work, where slowed rhythms and typical “wobble bass” meet icy soundscapes, sometimes alien.

The effect caused by this combination is undoubtedly bizarre: it seems like listening to a Carl Craig on a trip to Kingston, stoned on ganja, dirtying his sterile electronics with thick bass and syncopated drums.

In the nomadic wander between the Caribbean and Michigan (or between Earth and the Orion's Belt), we encounter various delights: it moves from the more classic beats of the genre ("Prototype", which perfectly uses a dialogue from the cult movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) to pieces where we find kick drums on the fourth beat and offbeat hi-hats, according to the best club culture tradition (the mysterious "Paradigm Shift" or the concluding "Birk’s Range").

The melodic aspect doesn’t seem to particularly interest Antony Williams (a track like "Technopolis", focused on rhythm and the overlaying of sound material, is quite indicative), however, it would be wrong to consider Nomad purely a conceptual work: sometimes the human side of Headhunter is glimpsed, perceptible in the vocals of the dreamy "Your Say", all handclaps and percussion.

The peak is reached with the hypnotic "In Motion", an extraordinary dub-techno track that seems to go on forever, up to that void around three minutes, a prelude to a climax made of skewed keyboards straight out of the discography of Orbital.

This is Nomad, take it or leave it. We are faced with an object conceived in a recording studio lost between the Antilles and the most remote galaxies, a testament to futuristic music, for many abstract and inhuman, and which, however, is already a reality.

There remains regret for a follow-up that never arrived (in the 2010s, Williams started the Addison Groove project); nonetheless, the debut of Headhunter can still be listened to and has only been partially affected by that aging process that, alas, compromised much of the English electronics of the period.

In short, if you feel like a space cruise and are not afraid to discover a symphony composed by an alien hooked on marijuana, Nomad is definitely for you.