If timing is everything in the business of selling records, then Vex'd might count themselves two of dubstep's most unfortunate men. It may seem a smidge premature to muse underrated or overlooked talents in a genre so youthful, except Cloud Seed—a "lost" second album of sorts—is proof positive that phenomenon already exists in 2010.
Half a decade ago, Vex'd, AKA Jamie Teasdale and Roly Porter, resided in Bristol, pre-dating the city's rise to dubstep pre-eminence. Debut album Degenerate was unleashed on an unsuspecting world in the summer of 2005, back when dubstep reviews routinely arrived with an explanatory genre caveat. A handful of subsequent 12-inches later, the trail went cold, the pair eventually going separate ways.
Comprising a collection of cuts created circa 2006/2007 originally destined for their sophomore album, plus a clutch of remixes, Cloud Seed isn't the follow-up proper thatDegenerate's industrial big bore exhaust explosion demanded. It is, in fact, an entirely different beast; tamed, but in its own standalone context, amongst the most beguiling full-lengths in the broad dubstep bracket since Burial's Untrue.
While Untrue represented the view from a South London nightbus window, Cloud Seed takes the same route through tower blocks and cold concrete ravaged by a chilling nuclear winter, at points orchestral to the point of classically trained compositions. "Remains of the Day" backs that notion early on, an ambient Terminatorfranchise-worthy soundscape as eerie as post-blast wave dust settling. Closing epic "Nails" is a steampunk nightmare machine so invasive that it heightens awareness of the very blood pumping in your veins, apparent black metal-sampling epilogue included. Similarly, there's a tangible malevolence at the heart of "Out of the Hills," riffing off patented space-dub vibrations versus disorientatingly thick weaves of peripheral bass.
It follows that as a retrospective collation that a certain coherency would be lacking, flitting from subtleties to, in the case of "Killing Floor" (Mah Mix)—the original the flip of 2006 single Bombardment of Saturn—tangible links to Degenerate's muscular darkstep. Yet it remains tempting to ponder where Teasdale and Porter would be now if Cloud Seed had emerged immediately after its creation at the height of Burial fever in 2007, or even beaten the anonymous one to the punch. Perhaps it's just as well that it didn't, though: remaining perfectly of the moment three years later, back then chances are that Vex'd would have disappeared over the horizon of dubstep's ever-evolving curve where few ears could keep pace. (RA.REVIEWS)
TRACKLIST
1 Vex'd Feat. Warrior Queen – Take Time Out
Vocals Warrior Queen 5:14
2 Vex'd – Remains Of The Day 3:55
3 Vex'd Feat. Anneka – Heart Space
Vocals Anneka 4:51
4 Vex'd – Out Of The Hills 5:02
5 Vex'd – Shinju Bridge 1:52
6 Vex'd – Slug Trawl Depths 1:36
7 Plaid – Bar Kimura (Jamie Vex'd Remix)
Remix Jamie Vex'd 4:55
8 Vex'd Feat. Jest – Disposition
Vocals Jest 4:03
9 John Richards – Suite For Piano & Electronics (Vex'd Remix)
Remix Vex'd 3:50
10 Vex'd – Killing Floor (MAH Mix) 3:28
11 Gabriel Prokofiev – String Quartet No.2 (Vex'd Remix)
Remix Vex'd 4:39
12 Distance – Fallen (Vex'd Remix)
Remix – Vex'd 6:18
13 Vex'd – Oceans 4:59
14 Vex'd – Nails 4:43
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