South London beatsmith Dylan Richards aka. King Cannibal‘s tracks have been punishing soundsystems and causing structural damage around London for some time now. His unique take on dancehall bashment infuses it’s infectious, brutal body-juddering riddims with the ferocious drum programming and dissonant, high-tech filth of late 90’s jungle.
A > [ Badman Near Dark ] (original)
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Android snarls, a charging, filthy bassline and superbly fierce drumwork make this the bastard crossover between hard electronic dancehall like The Bug and Stereotyp, and late 90’s techy jungle dons of Dillinja, Nico, Ed Rush and Optical. Fierce and heavy on the bass yet rhythmically agile and laced with dissonant atmospherics, Near Dark is mutant tech dancehall for Predator skanking, amid burning cities and the total collapse of civilisation.
It’s no surprise that his menacing tearout beats have long been championed by the likes of Rag and Bone Records, Combat, Mary Anne Hobbs, Amon Tobin, Kid 606, Bong Ra… just to name a few.
B > [ Badman Near Dark ] (Stormfield’s Burning Cities remix)
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Combat boss Stormfield mutates the 105bpm original into a 140bpm assault track that sits somewhere between the filthy rolling breaks and beats of Rag’n‘Bone, and the deep electro of Monolake or acid excursions of Skam’s Rob Hall. Caging a militant riddim around the original rolling bassline to give a broken, yet powerful dancefloor effect that that stops just short of being 4/4 techno, it kicks into full sprint from the first drop. A sombre mantra permeates the track, providing total stillness amid the frenzy of snarls, slashes and clattering drumwork, much like a samurai who enters with a serene mind into the absolute chaos of battle. A scorching, syncopated acid line cuts into the breakdown, dirty metallic hi hats keeping the tension, before it all kicks back into the 2nd drop.
C > [ Badman Near Dark ] (Komonazmuk remix)
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Funny how some things come full circle: With a tune so heavily influenced by the Cannibal’s heady days of raving to classic 90’s techstep drum’n‘bass, it seemed appropriate to ask Bristolian Kieran Lomax (aka the legendary Ice Minus of Moving Shadow / Renegade Hardware) to step up in his Komonazmuk guise and rework the track. The result is this colossal dubstep monster, an early version of which was previewed on King Cannibal’s Radio 1 set courtesy of Mary Anne Hobbs, during the Scorn vs. King Cannibal sound-off.
Similar to his co-production with White Boi on COMBAT13 and COMBAT14, he builds an expectedly powerful and menacing soundsytem track, like some snarling alien beast trapped behind an impenetrably solid wall of bass and drumwork. In the track’s early stages, even a test mp3 of this tune managed to out-blast most finished tracks in the club… imagine what damage this final version will do.
D > [ Badman Near Dark ] (Blackmass Plastics remix)
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Long time veteran of dirty bass wars, Blackmass Plastics should need no introduction especially since his recent Do the Mash EP is still burning up soundsystems all over. His remix is expectedly rolling, bass-driven and funky in a way that can only be described as utterly filthy, and laced with toxic industrial atmospheres that call to mind a paranoid chase through deserted nuclear bunker, stumbling in terror through the darkness, hounded by the tortured growls and razor sharp snares of some huge beast you can’t see.
This remix appears as an cheeky exclusive on the digital version of the release
Big things are happening for The Cannibal this year, having been recently signed to Ninja Tune, and with DJ support from right across the board and a load of gigs lined up. Expect a load of amazingly ferocious tracks that no labels have dared to release… until now.
