RATBLOOD.

RATBLOOD

Genre: ELECTRONIC

Cassette

Boomkat Product Review:

Proper, cult properties Michael J. Blood (blood, blood) + Tom Boogizm aka Ratheart join forces as RATBLOOD: debuting an hour of untouchable crooked funk on their new label BodyTronixxx and filling the spaces between Urban Tribe, Arthur Russell, Actress/Thriller and Turinn in a seemingly effortless flexing of DIY muscle that further cements their undisputed status as two of the most original and boundary-pushing characters on the scene right now.

A masterclass in loosey goosey, smoked-out badness, RATBLOOD's eponymous tape hustles stacks of deep fried shrapnel in a crushing session that lays their working out for all to hear in real time - no edits or overdubs, just hot-wired funk pebbledashed with samples, chewed and rinsed out with their untouchable swagger. Since emerging on Tom Boogizm’s NTS show in 2019, the pair have reliably destroyed heads, culminating with this, the duo’s 5th physical collab but the first under this umbrella, highlighting their most unpredictable and rudest moves yet.

The pair essentially seem to be developing a new kind of manc-specific club vernacular - where feeling and ideas trump precision, where everything often slides way off grid, out of bounds, into the red and turned upside down, making the most of basic/cheap equipment in a display of controlled chaos that’s as compatible with wayward Arthur Russell voiceover sessions to the crackling vibes of Actress’ Thriller series. In the best way imaginable, RATBLOOD dismantle pedantic old heads and snag younger mutants, dragging them sideways into an alternate timeline where anything can happen - from daylight-thru-curtains ambient soul scuzz, to cranky slow/fast madness, and loved-up/belly-aching rhythmic psychedelia.

Commencing with a sublime stroll in dusky/dawning Whalley Range zones, the session sharply swerves between fractal sampler blatz into serotonin-scraping soul thizz, vicious Detroit/Manc techno and hall-of-mirrors k-hole jit on the first side, before plastering syrupy soul licks to no waved vox and reeling off along kosmiche tangents into warehouse-folding dub noise and desiccated boogie on the backside. If you copped and loved any of the previous outings, this one’s another utterly unmissable salvo.

Cassette (6)