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January 1st 1970.
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Alongside Beneath and Visionist – both recent additions to the roster – Wen forms part of a new wave of producers coming through. With the capital awash with tepid tech house and, erm, housey techno, Wen’s dark, bass-lead minimal sound is refreshingly uncompromising, looking back to the pirate spirit of earlier times in dubstep yet looking forward towards new horizons via the tempo matrix UK funky vacated.
“I’m still quite fixated on keeping things minimal,” he says. "I like space between each element... The gaps in the percussion can often tie it together better than a drum hit.” Yet also embedded in the DNA of Wen’s sound are some of grime’s base pairs and his singular talent is to find fresh new ways to express them. Vocal chops, eski square synths, concentrated anger-energy: these core grime elements find themselves in dread new surroundings in Wen’s hands.
‘Commotion’ is the EP’s lead track, taking the excited hype or “commotion” of grime and cooling it down to absolute sub zero. Stratospheric early Metalheadz synths criss-cross its atmospheres while its run out groove contains a subtle nod to Wiley and his much celebrated beatless Devil Mixes. ‘Spark It’, ‘Road’, and ‘Nightcrawler’ continue the experimental blend of 130bpm bass drops, dread atmospheres, ill-defined percussive grooves and grime vocal calls-to-action.
Wen has already played Fabric, and Rinse FM twice with Dusk + Blackdown, and had his tunes played on 1Xtra and covered by Fact Mag. Mix in his work with that of other Keysound family like Logos, Beneath, and Visionist, and you find yourself in an emerging and fertile new cluster of black secret teleology.