Dead Fader – Scorched – (Small but hard 03)
Scorched was released at the same time as ‘Blood Forest’ on Robot Elephant.
While ‘Blood Forest’ was presumably intended to showcase DF’s tender side, bringing back some bad memories for this reviewer of accidentally listening to some dodgy IDM tunes, ‘Scorched’ is a mostly nice heavy set. Creeeep‘s the big cut here. It first caught my ear as one of the stand out cuts on the excellent 3by3 label mix a couple of years back. A 140ish miltant smasher with a grinding b-line and snappy snares. Also worth checking are the beatless pieces like Danger zone which have an eerie Tarkovsky feel.
Dead Fader – In cover – (Robot Elephant 18)
Curious development: a vinyl release with three reasonably dull cuts in a meldodic IDMish vein that’s worth finding for the two distorted ear bleeders that are included as a ‘bonus’ download. Mandel and Ceaser were apparently leftovers from the ‘Scorched session’, and are two massive overdriven off-cuts. Would’ve made a heavy 7″: Ceasar getting the balance between tension and release exactly right, with an expectant, offbeat intro that cuts to nothing before smashing back in with an overdriven half-step rhythm, that’s too short, but begs the rewind; and Mandel slowly modulating disconcerting vibes under crunchy distorted breakstep drums, that weirdly ends with a minute long fade-out.