BLAWAN レコード& CD

Review: Some eight years on from his Hessle Audio debut, Blawan has finally got round to releasing his debut album. Predictably, it's rather good, offering an eight-track assault on the senses built around his now familiar clanking, industrial-tinged polyrhythmic techno rhythms, foreboding electronics and paranoid, claustrophobic aural textures. Most of the sounds - including the percussion hits - were created using modular synthesis, which gives Wet Will Always Dry a particularly atmospheric and otherworldly feel. There are nods towards the likes of Surgeon and Livity Sound, as well as Rhythm & Sound/Basic Channel style dub techno, but the album's greatest strength is that it never sounds like anything other than a fine set of Blawan club tracks.

Review: Given that he's been active since the dawn of the decade and released countless singles on a wide variety of labels, it's something of a surprise to find that Nutrition is Jamie Roberts' debut album. Pleasingly, he's not altered his style to fit the format, instead opting to showcase six tough techno tracks in his usual fearless, club-ready style. Of course, there's still a certain amount of variety present - compare, for example, the end-of-days industrial motifs, foreboding textures and clattering drums of "Calcium Read" and the metallic, early morning tribal thrust of "Mayhem" - it's just that Roberts has no intention of compromising his principles. For that, he should be applauded.