Time flies. Yesterday's newly-landed label Asteroid is today's DJs charts-occupying techno force in full bloom. The owner of it, one Erik Blasted, wastes no time in between releases and keeps inviting more established artists to enrich the catalog with new names and bring more variety to his warehouse-aimed records. This time the choice fell on Italy-based RE_P, known primarily by his magnificent album on Subsist, and Hakko, a Frenchman and a regular on Nashton Records; RE_P & Hakko worked in collaboration and provided two original works. To top it off, their first track is backed by craftily-built remixes from Dykore, Opål and ArchivOne.

    It is on - the 134 BPM opener Mutual Brutality 01 won't bore you with any ambient intros: supremely potent, syncopated kicks attack the subwoofers straight from the second one, and they are soon joined by a mind-blowing bassline, shaped from a wildly roaring electric guitar; the composition manages to comprise elements from techno, breaks, metal and even a few reverberated bleeps vernacular to dub music, all the while being an extremely dense, high-energy work with productional quality taken to astonishing levels. With a one BPM slower Mutual Brutality 02, the story is somewhat different - the acid-infused drum kicks are arranged at 4/4 and are more grounded, yet still hefty and reliable, whilst the two separate basslines are presented as tonally melancholic elements that redirect the mood from cheerful to a substantially more serious one. Dykore's rework, paced one BPM below the original's tempo, wherein the robustly thudding 4/4 kicks that by times break their signature, densely sweeping hats, rough claps and bursts of poignantly-striking bars, will run against a majestic, overwhelming bassline that might prove too dramatic for some carefree smiley-time jumping, but if played at the right moment in set, it's all the club crowd will talk about after the party. Opål maintains the original's tempo, and after a bit of teasing with ambient, he will unleash some satisfyingly whanging 4/4 kicks with short sweeping samples attached to them, paper-thick bars that travel to and fro across the channels, some pretty generic opens hats and an acidic bassline that runs and pans at a rapid pace, falls and then rises in gain when the moments are fitting; failsafe warehouse production. ArchivOne elevates the pace to 135 BPM and makes use of positively devastating, mind-numbing 4/4 kicks that run their game under two layers of open hats at 4/4, sandy 16/16 hats whose sustain values keep expanding and shrinking, high-passed polyphonic streams of acid craftily turned into tonal percussion, and a simple but effective three-note bassline; unleashed on the dancefloor, it will shred the crowd to bits.

Release Type: EP

Release Date: 8 May 2017

Release Format: Digital

Record Label • Catalog: Asteroid • AD003

Purchase Links: Beatport • Junodownload • Bandcamp