Techno Animal
Radio Hades

Kevin Martin, a prominent figure in London's electronic scene, always keeping up with its evolving trends, music journalist and graphic designer, pioneer of illbient, dubstep, raggastep, Dälekian industrial rap-noise, a saxophonist of note, disciple of John Zorn, (continues...), is behind a myriad of projects that calling them all absolute quality is quite an understatement: The Bug, King Midas Sound, God, Ice, Experimental Audio Research, Pressure and many others certainly not lesser. The labels that have housed his art are equally impressive: City Slang, Matador, Rephlex, Hyperdub, Mille Plateaux, Force Inc, Tigerbeat6, Big Cat, DHR: quite a list. The peak, however, emerged from the technoid beast that the bearded producer conceives during one of the many noise orgies together with long-time collaborator Justin 'Godflesh' Broadrick (another hyper-prolific, influential artist with various personalities, although his touch here is minor).

Techno Animal is not a mere musical pseudonym of two jokers deciding to collaborate. It is an entity in itself with its own life, development, and superior intelligence. Techno Animal is the depiction of post-industrial London, a being conceived and developed from its debris; nothing succeeds like Techno Animal, which experienced it firsthand, in highlighting its urban features and alienation. Techno Animal assimilates the musical trends, developments, signals, absorbs and regurgitates them in new forms, different from any other regurgitation. Experimentation, but not only. "Radio Hades" is all this even before appearing as a sterile collection of reconstructions of previously released tracks only in various limited-edition EPs; they are the techno animal's organic waste collected in a bowl, but they have all the semblance of a rich meal, all the semblance of an album as such.

Highly compressed sound, saturation almost at Merzbow's level (okay, still unreachable) and extreme distortions behind a wall of violence that more than ever cites the destructive nihilism of industrial. Very slow, dark, raw, and metallic beats are what you will find inside this great release. From the paranoid and sighed vocals reminiscent of Tricky that hover over the mysterious "The Myth-Illogical" to the imposing devastations of harsh anthems like "Toxicity," "Beheaded," "Excavator," "Phantom Tribe" moving to the duo's now typical tedious walls of feedback and pronounced basses dwelling on "Bass Concussion," "The Disciples of Dark" and "Fistfunk." If you know the two types, there is no need to tell you how the beats are utter devastation and how they are in constant struggle with the - to say the least - exaggerated basses attempting to bury them, and often succeed, only to be in turn buried by violent and distorted third breaks entering the scene, giving rise to noise delusions of unheard power. And if we also consider Martin's mid-nineties illbient, brought to a dub level full of all those acid synths, dirty sounds, and ambient backgrounds that populated the previous "Re-Entry" encountered on trips like "Return of the Venom" or "Dread Time Warp," it is clear that there are no more excuses, this record must be yours.

Harsh is the watchword.