Habits Of Hate – Habits Of Hate EP

Label: Electronic ExplorationsScore: 8/10

Rob Booth’s original Electronic Explorations (EE) podcast series has for many people been a vital discovery ground over the years for people interested in fucking amazing, underground electronic music. His taste is varied and eclectic championing things as diverse as industrial techno, electronica/IDM, dubstep, garage and everything in between in the process becoming the tastemaker’s tastemaker.

His influence has been particulairy felt over the last 18 months or so with his curatorship of Fabric’s in house, artist led label Houndstooth – the label that gave us pseudo jungle of  Special Request’s ‘Soul Music’, the weighty, dark and clinical Akkord’s eponymous debut LP, King Cannibal’s rebirth as House of Black Lanterns, the latest projects from Ross “Throwing Snow” Tones as well as persuading techno veteran Dave Clarke to come out of production retirement for his collaborative project with Mr.Jones, Unsubscribe.

His third release from his own EE comes in the form of a pair of industrial, “pitch black war techno” bangers simply emblazoned with the words “Habits of Hate”, produced by 16 year old wunderkid Happa and prolific futurist Manni Dee. The duo are as is this eponymous entitled EP called “Habits of Hate; the words extremely apt as we embark on a twelve minute journey of dark, twisted, perverted, load bearing nosebleed techno.

Opening number “Limelight Roles” kicks off with a heavily distorted, relentlessly stomping Booth beloved 3-3-2 dancehall pattern, treasured by the new so called “UK Techno Scene” – and extensively championed by Akkord and the Livity Sound project and individual artists – that doesn’t so much as let up in it barrage on your senses, but rather subtly changes with the low end slowly melting away before being shot back into action replete with a catchy, mangled hook that eventually merges with some jarring high pitched industrial noise, and some sick mangled rhythms before returning to usher back a sense of sense to proceedings. It’s exhilarating stuff, and the production duo’s combined command of their pretty out there distortion treatments is second to none. Its dark, alien music and is now the soundtrack to my own personal extra-terrestrial abduction. Perhaps the most pertinent thing to note about this tune is that the waveform on soundcloud looks a lot like two penises caught in a Chinese finger trap… Coincidence seeing as the next tune is called….?

… ‘Rebel From The Waist Down’ is to sum it up brutally is “caustic acid”. Broken, heavy kicks unite with severely corrupted sequenced synth lines, riddled with feedback and mechanical fuzz, and a tainted high-end that is rusty beyond belief. But like a steampunk cartoon rendition of robot the crust, rust, dirt, moss, sludge and filth does not affect its operational functionality as it delivers the full bodied impact we have come to expect from this disgusting duo! This tune will kill on the dancefloor and when used correctly will stomp on its audience’s heads like Ed Norton in American History X.

If you like Perc, Regis, Surgeon, Shifted and Untold’s recent output then this is for you. If you like experimental electronics then this is for you. If you your stuff gritty and hard this is for you. If you like Disclosure or Rudimental this probably isn’t for you, but you should listen to it anyway and educate yourself as to what proper bloody music is.