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Urban Tribe, "Authorized Clinical Trials"
Veteran producer Sherard Ingram, perhaps best (un)known as the mysterious Drexciyan DJ Stingray, drops a full length of delectable abrasive electro that honors the memory of James Stinson while challenging conventions and often experimenting wildly.After Stinson's tragic death, amidst the collective mourning lay the question of who would, or even could, take up the reins of deep Detroit electro that he and cohort Gerald Donald made together and individually under a plethora of shadowy monikers, the most infamous being the aquatic beings of Drexciya. Rephlex has thankfully decided to press forward with this, dropping Arpanet's respectable Quantum Transposition last year, and now this gritty sophomore full length from Urban Tribe. Those familiar with the project's Mo Wax recordings or Ingram's collaborative work with luminaries like Juan Atkins and Kirk DeGiorgio might be caught off guard by this atonal funk workout.
To clarify, Authorized Clinical Trials does not engage in derivative Drexciyan mimicry. Dissonant hits and industrial snares trump the deep sea beauty and late-period interstellar noodling of that unavoidably retired project, not to say that the album is wholly drained of melody. Ingram peppers minimalist tracks like "Axon" and the previously released single "Biohazard 17284" with synth flourishes among the bass, beats, and noise. "Amino Acid Sequence" stands out with a heavy 4/4 kick-snare combo supplemented by an addictively vibrant yet sparingly used bleepy loop, reminiscent of some of the best moments on Harnessed The Storm or Neptune's Lair.
As implied before, Urban Tribe perfoms as expected from a contemporary of the Detroit greats yet brazenly defies convention, taking creative risks with the cocksure attitude of an iconoclast. The chord progressions of the pads on "RNA World" give it a certain retro-future quality essential for any self-respecting electro artist album, though its steady punchy rhythm appears more informed by classic techstep than by-the-numbers Motor City techno. The prototypically hip hop infused closer "Stop Codon" plods along ominously like a march to a 21st century Golgotha after the dancefloor fury of everything that preceeded it.
Sometimes the tempo turns "intelligently" erratic, sped up too fast for anyone to reasonably groove or dance to, as in the case of the skippable "Phospholipid Bilayer." Yet despite this the album hand-delivers enough filthy electro power to satisfy pious bass worshippers at home, in the club, or even under the sea.
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