After vocal-led 12”s featuring the likes of Razor and Sikka Rymes, Low End Activist pivots back towards purely instrumental territory for further explorations in the hybridised hardcore sphere. There’s an over-arching air of introspection to the five tracks assembled here, as LEA’s signature bass ructions and jagged, roughly-hewn drums offset with a widescreen line in melancholia.

From tweaked out hi-vis synth wobbles to dust-encrusted soundtrack loops, crushing percussive textures to the finest slithers of rhythm, this is densely packed, sample heavy tackle pulling in multiple directions in any one bar. The craft behind each piece is tangible, yet for all the studio flex it’s the ambiguous nature of the melodic and atmospheric material which deepens the impact of the music. Continuing an approach displayed on the earlier Engineers Origins 12”, LEA ignores formalised structure to instead explore the lie of each track in a non-linear fashion as though they were a planetoid pockmarked with bass craters and lit by irregular solar flares. Consider LEA004 an astral package holiday to five distinct destinations without an itinerary stifling the experience.[info sheet from distr.]