Following a festival of fantastic remixes. – for folks such as David Harrow and Hugo Nicolson – and a cracking collaborative long-player with Dan Wainwright – Rude Audio have now released a solo, mini, album of their own. Well, solo of sorts, since a few friends are also onboard to help out. Matt Gunn, for example, brings his beats to MGB1, this outing’s only uptempo number, a piece of pace-y, pumping, pounding prog house. Rich Lane remixes Milo On A Hill. The original is a booming, bass-filled space, also filled with heavily echoed percussion. Sorta like Jah Wobble’s Invaders Of The Heart spun at 33, not 45 (a la Bandulu). Complete with exotica, ethereal vocals. It shakes its stuff to a slow rumba, like a more subdued reprise of Running Wild – Rude Audio’s contribution to Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 1. Lane’s lick is a magnificent, melodica-led, modern roots digi-dub skank.

The bulk of set actually bears a beast of a bottom end. North Star Dub is cavernous. Collaging a couple of breaks to a siren / alarm hook. Chunky and chugging, then lifted by rolling keys, the track comes to be dominated by seesawing, cycling Middle Eastern psyche string riff. Swamp Ting is (thankfully) not a cover of The Grid’s top ten hillbilly techno hit, but instead a ringing, rattling, crashing collision of wah-wah guitar and some seriously funky, downtempo thumping. Groovy, and a bit grungy, its synths are cinematic and its mixing desk phasing effects psychedelic. No Sleep is Chris & Cosey-esque electronic, erotic, hypnotic, pagan tango trance. Pairing ping-ponging bleeps with a deep, descending B-line, and slightly spooky spoken samples. Nobixalso borrows its voice. In this case, it could be David Lynch who says, “I had a dream last night…” over wonky, wobbly, almost acidic, percussive, programmed semi-industrial funk.

Rude Audio’s Strange Phenomena can be ordered directly fromBandcamp.

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