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Benjamin Damage Obsidian 50Weapons

15.10.15

With the release of Benjamin Damage’s second solo album, Modeselektor’s 50Weapons label is calling it a day. Clearly the label – and Damage – are feeling nostalgic, because Obsidian feels like a long, lucid love-letter to the recent past.

Emerging in the blizzard of new talent that swept out of UK bedrooms and across European dance floors around 2010, Damage’s productions were characteristic of the defining music shift of the time, fusing house and techno with the remnants of dubstep’s derivatives. On Obsidian, there’s nothing quite as teeth-rattling as previous single Swarm. Instead, the focus is on sleek, nuanced but tough techno-based productions, with nods to the defining artists, sounds and aesthetics that have shone brightly over the last decade in underground dance music.

The spacious Transmission sounds like vintage Martyn, while Shimmer layers hands-in-the-air synth fades over a rhythm and melody that evokes a laid-back Lone. The sonic markers pegging Obsidian to the post Hyph Mngo explosion are not hidden: the dreamy-but-driving style of production; the skittering break- beats wrapped around a techno thud. The introspective epic Pulse Width could be a guest spot from Modeselektor themselves but when handled with such skill and care, it is a celebration not a tribute.

Although it now sounds like a Nathan Barley outtake, the notion of ‘future garage’ was a well-meaning attempt at capturing an explosion of creative energy in electronic music. Obsidian never resorts to lazy retro re-hashes, but offers a welcome trip down memory lane to a point where the best days of this ‘future’ genre were still yet to come.