Available on: Blackest Ever Black 12″

‘If Anywhere was here he would know where we are’ [clip]

‘This Foundry’ (Regis Version) [clip]

British duo Raime’s self-titled first release, inaugurating the Blackest Ever Black label, specialized in dark – some might say the darkest ever – and brooding techno; but was it techno? The three-track EP seemed to have as much in common with early Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle, post-punk and goth as it did with, say, Sandwell District. Raime’s tracks came across as stone pillars of towering antiquity, sounding grand, weathered and wizened.

On their second EP, the duo work further at digging their own little foxhole in electronic music, one where they can hide from the all-consuming dystopia which they can’t help but evoke.  The rather cumbersomely titled ‘If Anywhere was here he would know where we are’ again sees their usual dilapidated drums ring out into the void, only the expanse is suddenly much bigger. Gone is the occluded and claustrophobic atmosphere, and brought in are amber-encased drones that seem to swallow up the room from below.  When the synths briefly burst through to the forefront, it becomes apparent how desperately empty Raime’s world really is when fully exposed to the light: its formidable mass is only an illusory byproduct of its speaker-rattling low-end.  It’s an effect that goes far and beyond the pseudo-horror tendencies of the first EP into something more psychologically frightening. As the drums beat harder, jostling the track’s foundations, Raime eclipse the goth implications of their debut and make something much more interesting, less indebted to past idols.

On the flip, Downwards boss and Sandwell District associate Regis takes ‘This Foundry’ (from Raime’s first EP) and detonates it from the inside, busting it wide open much like ‘Anywhere’. It’s the closest thus far that Raime have gotten to functionality, though to Regis’s credit it’s still very much in line with the original’s vision. The beat itself is a spidery crawl, faking rhythmic transparency as blackened sound effects find their way in between the beats, obscuring the drunken kick drum.  If your wonder mindlessly out of the beat, or simply lose track amidst the chaos, good luck finding your way back in.

While this 12″ represents a resounding improvement on an already successful idea, it perhaps lacks the urging importance of the preceding EP, isn’t quite so bracing a breath of acrid air. Regardless, Raime’s sound is developing fast, and if scrambled attempts to pigeonhole them might have resulted in ill-informed dubstep (among other things) comparisons in the past, anyone making those restrictive connections at this point ought be taken out, hung, drawn and quartered.  Come to think of it, ‘If Anywhere’ probably wouldn’t make a bad soundtrack for that.

Andrew Ryce