dyLAB – Filter In (Acid All Stars)

Cat no: AA25
Release date: 16/06/11
Get it from: Beatport

There’s a Cornish flavour to the latest from Melbourne’s dyLAB, who acknowledges the debt to Rephlex’s Universal Indicator on his site. Just as he did with his previous EP, Wordsmith Project, where he worked from a template of trippy Chicagoan Acid, he’s revisiting the epochal 303 of our youth and tickling it into the new millennium with a fresh layer of sounds. Thus the Filter In EP is Mike Dred and Aphex acid but with bounce – a bit of dancefloor poke. And if it seems unusually expansive of him to so readily acknowledge his sources, then that’s because he knows full well that he’s bringing something new to the party. As Utah Saints would say, something good. It’s rare to find someone who works so diligently and with such perfectionism in their chosen field, but if that’s what you want, and who doesn’t, then dyLAB’s the droid you’re looking for.

The EP works as a whole. Really? Yes, really. It’s sixteen minutes thirty two seconds of analogue journey, of sounds that begin almost conventionally at Filter In One and finish fried and exhausted-but-happy by Filter In Three. Filter In One (130BPM) then, is probably the most floor-friendly of the set. It’s got a spacious bass drum and sudden outbreaks of distorted military drumming, like you used to hear in Sabres of Paradise records. Over that comes exquisite, high-frequency acid, a head fuck for sure, but a funky one. Filter In Two (130 BPM) is a more obstinate, testing offering, best heard when you’ve been softened up by One, with the drums taking a distinct second place to screaming, squabbling 303 lines. By Filter in Three (135 BPM) you’re hearing the final death throes of his machinery and, fittingly, it all ends suddenly, as though burnt out and blackened. In short, a brilliant EP. A masterful brew of acid worship and musical ambition from a producer happy to feed the head and feet.

dyLAB – Wordsmith Project (Acid All Stars)

Cat no: AA22
Release date: 12/05/11
Get it from: Beatport

Three-oh-three rapture hisses from every valve of a perfectly engineered release from Melbourne’s dyLAB, a producer evidently enamoured, not only with the sound of acid’s old skool, but also with its founding principles: the idea of the acid as experimental counterpoint to the marching rhythm of house and techno; as an ever-expanding fractal, as psychedelic graffitti on the austerity of a four-four beat. There are seven tracks here and they can be sampled via his Soundcloud page, or his blog, where he explains the genesis of the project thus: ‘The EP is based around the concept of using the Roland TB-303 as a typewriter, and writing short words or phrases using the notes of the 303 and seeing what works, musically. The rhythms all come from the Roland TR-707, some live and some multitracked.’

Kicking things off is BAD Version Two (140 BPM)** which fuses the speed and structure of more fearsome acid techno to a kaleidoscopic, echoing acid pattern, the result being a mini masterpiece of hypnotic 303. It’s the pick of the EP and certainly the one that lends itself best to a faster techno set. Meanwhile BAD (130 BPM) is a more explicitly house treatment, while the original of CAGEDFACE shades it over the second version (both 130 BPM) by having just that bit more thump. FAG and DEAD (both 130 BPM) strip things way back to the Windy City, but with a far brighter sound – like a Blu-Ray version of 1980s acid house – while EP closer A Fag Gagged Bad (130 BPM) is an itchy unsettling tune that I genuinely can’t say whether I like or or not, so I won’t try. As a whole, a superb EP, and a brilliant introduction to the DyLAB sound and philosophy, an approach he expands further on upcoming release In Filter, which we’ll get to in due course…