The Bug aka Kevin Richard Martin, and Berlin based, American producer/vocalist, Dis Fig aka Felicia Chen, refer to their style on the album In Blue as ’Tunnel Sound’. A foggy, melancholic meltdown of narco-dancehall, zoned soul and dread drenched, electronic dub.
Almost 2 years of lab exchanges finally led to the deeply sensual pulsations, and lyrical long shadows of In Blue - an album that shares shades of King Midas Sound’s wrecked lovers rock, alongside the bass immersion that The Bug has become infamously known for. So it’s appropriate that Martin should return to Hyperdub, where “Skeng” was initially dropped as a single. And just as Martin took a stylistic swerve on this album, so did Chen. Previously known for experimental noise onslaughts and emotional exorcisms, she herein, opts for threatening intimacy and hushed confessionals, concentrating on bittersweet vocals and seductive surprises that are all the more potent for their inferred narratives and delicate delivery.
Mixed entirely during lockdown in Kevin’s new Brussels home, the sense of claustro-fear, escapism and tension is palpable. And with the bewitching croon of Dis Fig, directing the flow, carnality and violence merge under the turbulent, cinematic surface of this hypnotically addictive album.
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