Low End Activist
Municipal Dreams
Boomkat Product Review:
Bassbin spectre Low End Activist weaves weightless grime with choice location recordings to evoke formative stomping grounds in an Oxford council estate for an absorbingly hauntological, ruffly narrative-driven 3rd album RIYL Burial, Logos, Demdike Stare, Richie Culver
With ‘Municipal’ Dreams’ the now Berlin-based artist chisels his signature sound design to describe a semi-autobiographical account of life on the Blackbird Leys estate, on the peripheries of Oxford - a city renowned for its posh uni and lavish architecture, but also home to normal, working class people. Thru a precise but tactfully distorted prism of grime x dark ambient electronica, he follows the haunted rave pastoralism of this year’s ace ‘Airdrop’ for Peak Oil with a set closer to the themes of 2022’s ‘Hostile Utopia’.
The 14 tracks suggest a personalised story of lived experience, balancing brooding melodic sentiment with desiccated hardcore dance and road music structures in the best style of Burial’s latter works or Logos’ long players. Sounds from a TWOC’d Subaru Impreza exhaust, local characters, and a short film shot by a local youth club infuse LAE’s bare bones constructions with a fleeting but visceral realism that alludes to his experience of growing up with family and mates who’ve been thru the UK’s broken institutions with, as he puts it, “little to no support on being released back into society”, and resulting that “the same cycles of behaviour would play out over and over” due to the UK government’s myopic policies and systematically shattered community structures.
From his relative outsider-insider perspective, Low End Activist uses negative space as a key tool to illustrate and articulate his feelings between the gutted atmosphere of ‘Lies & Deceit’ and the ultimate shiver of hope in his redlining Korg Triton bass on ‘Hope II’. Like other artists such as Demdike Stare (Burnley) or Richie Culver (Hull) who’ve relocated to bigger cities, Low End Activist speculatively twists notion of dance music as modern folk to give his music a distinctive impact, most affectively in his use of joyriding exhaust revs on the shearing torque of ‘TWOC’, the introspective torpor of ‘Wrong Turn, Dead End’, and brutal roadside rubbernecking of ‘Violence’, or most bleakly summed up in the rictus grime bruxism of ‘Just a Number (Institutionalised).’ It’s not an easy listen, but it is strong addition to a carefully plotted, uncompromising catalogue.
View more
2LP in Screenprinted PVC Sleeve inc. Photo Book
Estimated Release Date: 18 October 2024
Please note that shipping dates for pre-orders are estimated and are subject to change
Boomkat Product Review:
Bassbin spectre Low End Activist weaves weightless grime with choice location recordings to evoke formative stomping grounds in an Oxford council estate for an absorbingly hauntological, ruffly narrative-driven 3rd album RIYL Burial, Logos, Demdike Stare, Richie Culver
With ‘Municipal’ Dreams’ the now Berlin-based artist chisels his signature sound design to describe a semi-autobiographical account of life on the Blackbird Leys estate, on the peripheries of Oxford - a city renowned for its posh uni and lavish architecture, but also home to normal, working class people. Thru a precise but tactfully distorted prism of grime x dark ambient electronica, he follows the haunted rave pastoralism of this year’s ace ‘Airdrop’ for Peak Oil with a set closer to the themes of 2022’s ‘Hostile Utopia’.
The 14 tracks suggest a personalised story of lived experience, balancing brooding melodic sentiment with desiccated hardcore dance and road music structures in the best style of Burial’s latter works or Logos’ long players. Sounds from a TWOC’d Subaru Impreza exhaust, local characters, and a short film shot by a local youth club infuse LAE’s bare bones constructions with a fleeting but visceral realism that alludes to his experience of growing up with family and mates who’ve been thru the UK’s broken institutions with, as he puts it, “little to no support on being released back into society”, and resulting that “the same cycles of behaviour would play out over and over” due to the UK government’s myopic policies and systematically shattered community structures.
From his relative outsider-insider perspective, Low End Activist uses negative space as a key tool to illustrate and articulate his feelings between the gutted atmosphere of ‘Lies & Deceit’ and the ultimate shiver of hope in his redlining Korg Triton bass on ‘Hope II’. Like other artists such as Demdike Stare (Burnley) or Richie Culver (Hull) who’ve relocated to bigger cities, Low End Activist speculatively twists notion of dance music as modern folk to give his music a distinctive impact, most affectively in his use of joyriding exhaust revs on the shearing torque of ‘TWOC’, the introspective torpor of ‘Wrong Turn, Dead End’, and brutal roadside rubbernecking of ‘Violence’, or most bleakly summed up in the rictus grime bruxism of ‘Just a Number (Institutionalised).’ It’s not an easy listen, but it is strong addition to a carefully plotted, uncompromising catalogue.
More from Low End Activist:
-
FREE MP3 WITH VINYLLow End Activist Airdrop Peak Oil Electronic- MP3
- FLAC
- WAV
- Cassette
-
Low End Activist Dry Chat, Wet Rag Sneaker Social Club Electronic
- MP3
- FLAC
- WAV
-
Low End Activist Remixes & Instrumentals Sneaker Social Club Grime / Fwd
- MP3
- FLAC
- WAV
-
FREE MP3 WITH VINYLLow End Activist Hostile Utopia Sneaker Social Club Electronic
- MP3
- FLAC
- WAV
- 2LP (Black Vinyl)
-
Low End Activist Low End Activism 004 Low End Activism Grime / Fwd
- MP3
- FLAC
- WAV
More from Sneaker Social Club:
-
Mars89 No Control Sneaker Social Club Electronic
- MP3
- FLAC
- WAV
-
Trinity Carbon TC001 Sneaker Social Club Grime / Fwd
- MP3
- FLAC
- WAV
-
SPD Genbu Sneaker Social Club Techno / House
- MP3
- FLAC
- WAV
-
Dead Man's Chest & King Kutlass Trip II Insanity Sneaker Social Club Jungle / Footwork
- MP3
- FLAC
- WAV
-
T5UMUT5UMU 玄 Gen Sneaker Social Club Electronic
- MP3
- FLAC
- WAV