Witchman - Explormenting Beats

Label: Deviant
Catologue Number: DVNT19CD
Format: CD
Date: 1997
Style: Dark Breakbeat
Rating: 8/10
Reviewer: Sidney James

Something strange must have contaminated the waters of Birmingham, something that has left darkness in the hearts of all the musicians whose lips it has past. Beginning with Black Sabbath, via Scorn and Godflesh, the West Midlands City has produced some of the heaviest and darkest music in a whole range of genres. Now Witchman (aka John Roome) has continued this fine tradition in producing one of the most chilling break beat albums in recent years.

What makes Explorimenting Beats more of a revelation is Roome's past musical career. As a one-time member of mediocre Cyber Goths Terminal Power Company, his past showed no real indications of the genius that was to come. The evolution from a being in a band that sounded like Jesus Jones on depressants to a DJ Shadow reared on horror flicks rather than a rare groove is one that truly astounds. Roome has since the release of this album remixed the Creatures and worked with the Orb and as if to give a nod to his roots, produced Ian Astbury of The Cult’s solo album. Showing that he is willing to cut across all genres.

The Witchman sound could be described as a mix of darkly cinematic atmospherics undercut with slamming break beats, nagging strings, deep dub bass lines, sub junglist beats, eerie fxs and twisted samples. Comparisons if any, can be made to bands like The Sabres of Paradise and Scorn for the dark dub, Photek for the drum and bass rhythms and dark omniscience of the fxs and the fore mentioned DJ Shadow and Amon Tobin for the over all construction and playfulness.

Explorimenting Beats begins with the angled Viper Flats, led by a dubbed out piano line and a deep bass and kicking it with the fantastic vocal sample "some new chaos, some new darkness" before the beats rip into the song. The sample line becomes a signature for the whole album. The rest of the song floats around a looped female voice as beats and the fxs almost trip over themselves.

From here onwards the album develops this theme of chaos and darkness, from the Red Snapper on downers of Amok. All jazz double bass and Kid Koalaish turntable manipulations the track sounds like a modern take on the Third Man theme before exploding into more runaway beats and a squelching electronic bass sound.

Other tracks like Stone Def and Order of the Dragon build on dark atmospherics and slower dub bass lines and weighted drums. Imagine Leftfield if they moved away from the dance floor and decided to make music for film noir soundtracks and your half way there. The thing is that Witchman has a way of twisting the sound and constantly introducing the unexpected.

Another indication for where Witchman is coming from is the song Chemical Noir (another film reference?) which sounds like John Carpenter's Halloween music lost inside Lee Scratch Perry's Black Ark studios unable to find the exit as the fires spread. This combination of dub and cinematic forms is
what gives Witchman a unique identity, no one has come close to matching the power of voodoo dub and horror film scores as well before.

Any other times Explorimenting Beats is influenced by more urban elements. From the muted siren that heads Hammerhead to the cityscape sounds of NY 23 with its fragments of jazz piano and horn and it's pirate radio jungle beats. Other tracks like No Place like Chrome blend sampled electric guitar with deep electro bass and hip hop samples all creating to a sense of urban paranoia and suffocation.

Explorimenting Beats is an album that once again proves that most of the grand musical ideas are originating from the electronic leftfield. It is supremely well crafted and constructed, and it’s imagination and innovation is matched by very few other electronic artists. Like the cinematic elements that have influenced Witchman’s music , Explorimenting Beats creates an audio world which sucks you in, only to leave you with a feeling of sweet asphyxiation. File under uneasy listening.