Plasma Sources is proud to present unearth’s Soundsystem Music, an EP which provides a fresh perspective on the high-fidelity and sci-fi influenced electronic music the imprint is known for.
unearth’s work sits in a truly unique space in the sound system/club music-o-sphere. This in large part is due to his heavy deployment of progressive metal instrumentation, from chugging walls of overdriven guitars to relentless double-time kick patterns. On paper, utilising this palette in a club-music context may seem like an impossible task. However, where others might see a chasm of disparity, unearth has deftly identified the bridge connecting these two genres, seeing in these two landscapes the same desired emotional state - despite the different methodologies used to achieve this.
“This record attempts to make the case that the essence of what makes these sounds so obsessively loved are one and the same. Gripping dramatism and intensity are the overlapping themes that I have attempted to bring out here, through the record’s sound design and film-like structure.”
Indeed Soundsystem Music as a whole feels wildly cinematic and is as much an exercise in atmosphere creation as music for sound systems, with unearth citing the video game Dead Space and its sequel as key influences for this body of work. From the claustrophobic, elasticated wind chamber of ‘Traced’ to the broken choir voices and FiS-esque ambient abyss of ‘Dead Land’, unearth has expertly matched the pace and atmosphere of these hugely iconic and utterly terrifying video games and channeled them into a purely sonic experience.
The metal influences unearth brings to the table slice through the entire corpus of Soundsystem Music, although the linkage is perhaps at its most clear on ‘Airlock’, which features a full-on death-metal guitar chugging through the first half. In perhaps the most surprising switch-up of the entire EP, things suddenly twist into a guttural underwater club track a third of the way through.
unearth’s love for the vast ecosystem of club/soundsystem music also comes through loud and clear on this release, from the grime-inflected leads and hyper-detailed polyrhythmic noise workouts of ‘Unregistered Hypercam’ to the reverberated metal clangs of ‘Kauket’s Arena’ which feels like witch-house on steroids - the soundtrack to some final boss battle with some type of nightmare-demon-entity.
unearth has achieved something unique with Soundsystem Music. By drawing together a hugely disparate corpus of influences and pummelling them into a noise-fuelled apocalyptic aberration, he has created a sound which feels consistent, fully his own, and in many places, utterly dread-inducing.
