Fenin’s debut release, ‘Grounded’,
elevated him to the forefront of the dub-tech scene and was received
with much praise by critics due to its clever progressions and
warm production. It was an album that perfectly encapsulated the
overarching elements of both techno (hypnotic, progressive soundscapes)
and dub (warm, blessed-out haziness) and fused it into one great
body. With ‘Been Through’, Fenin has stretched this
formula even further making full use of the hypnotic qualities
of both genre’s to create a murky yet soulful slice of atmospheric
dub-tech chock full of sub aqua-warps, hypnotically pulsing guitars
and the occasional smattering of reggae vocals. This truly is
electronic music that talks to the soul.
Injecting dense layers filled by an increasing
number of manipulated instrumentation, ‘Been Through’
presents Fenin in a stylistically varied mood creating (slightly)
more song-based offerings thanks to collaborations with Italian
producer Eraldo Bernocchi, Jamaican toaster Scorcha and Ghanaian
singer and long time collaborator, MC Gorbi. You might remember
the latter from Shitkatapult’s beer-dedicated compilation
‘SmaShits’ in which Fenin and MC Gorbi undoubtedly
contributed the strongest track, ‘Red Red Wine’. Thankfully
this track, an ultra-chilled slice of atmospheric dub-tech dripping
with squelchy synths and micro-dub warps, appears on ‘Been
Through’ but it no longer stands out thanks to the high
quality of adjoining material.
The 11 cuts shift from hazy and drugged
out visions of 30th century Jamaica to claustrophobic, Berlin-inspired
technoid stompers like ‘Breakin’ and ‘Years
Ago’ with their dense, ad-infinitum warpage and liquid sci-fi
dub effects shooting across in a slo-mo haze. On ‘Colourfields’,
MC Gorbi lets loose his tuneful and soulful vocals, wrapping lyrics
invitingly around the propulsively bubbling soup of distorting
bass and manipulated, pulsing guitar melodies carved from the
blueprint laid by Manuel Göttsching. The techno-DNA of this
track gathers pace towards the end leading to a minute and a half
of hypnotic tech-dub bliss, an entity that is in abundance throughout
the album. ‘Miles and More’ utilises a proto-IDM sci-fi
aesthetic that is in keeping with Clint Mansell’s delectable
‘Pi’ Soundtrack whilst ‘Complain’ features
‘Scorcha’ who is Buju Banton-esque in his passionate,
accentuated vocal delivery, spitting “like a computa, I’m
da mainframe” over an invitingly simmering dubscape.
The thirst for high quality humanistic
dub-tech by fans of Chain Reaction, Scape and Basic Channel should
be well and truly quenched with this latest beast, especially
those seeking a companion piece to Rhythm and Sound’s epic
‘See Mi Yah’ release. Thankfully, there is also a
12 " vinyl dropping in April with remixes by ‘Sun Electric’,
‘Daniel Meteo’, ‘Der Dritte Raum’ and
Fenin himself. (AM)
For fans of: System, Veer, Basic Channel, Pole, Rhythm and Sound
Remix Series, Maurizio, Deepchord
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