Artikal drops four meditative and foundation orientated bombs via the New Mexican producer EshOne. For those who are copping the 320, the digital bonus ‘Watchful Eye’ comes included as well. While some heads overseas may not know who EshOne is, we’ve had the pleasure of seeing him at our version of System or Contact; Reconstrvct, and his tunes have been dropped by Joe Nice in countless sets. Get familiar because you’re going to hear more from the States soon!
First up is the lumbering behemoth of ‘Petroglyphs’. Shrouded in what sounds like a burbling creek-bed and subtle caresses of white noise, this totemic earth mover swaggers about with ’06 style with a pneumatic steppas riddim that plummets way, way, way down as congas roll out in tribal fashion. Soon after, those bitcrushed shofars tuck into the sub rhythm and really make the shoulders start to samba. ‘Number Nine’ is a melancholic-infused roller that gallops full bore as incandescent, shimmering melodies sparkle while a lone siren laments, echoing off adobe roofs and solitary gas stations that pot-mark long expanses of bone dry, cadaverous highways. Buried somewhere in the mix emerge cracks of thunder and other etheric field recordings of places not known and seen that only adds to the paranoia.
Meanwhile ‘Hot Sauce’ wields that dread-inducing Kode 9 synth timbre that vacillates between harmony and dissonance to properly fuck yr head up inna dance. Pots and pans percussion bounce and spar across the sound-field while a burrowing b-line goes for miles beneath the Earth’s core. Deploy this and watch the floor go loopy. The digital release comes with ‘Watchful Eye’ and is geared with spring loaded snares and deeply meditative conga patterns that induce altered states. A lone synth enters the fray to push you beyond the temporal and into the eternal. The near constant pressurized sub-bass drone rattles the eyes, until swinging in a see-saw like manner that gives you a second to catch your breath before being swept under again.
With Tempa signing AxH and Artikal releasing EshOne’s EP, it finally looks, at long last, that we Americans are becoming recognised across the pond for our producers. It’s been a long time coming and well over-due. After absolute floor smashers by Thelem, Ipman and TMSV, Artikal adds another gem to it’s recent catalogue and looks to join the ranks of recent up-and-coming labels like Innamind and System that have been overhauling the foundation sound to meet their own schemes.
