Description
‘Decadubs 4’ is a vinyl-only companion-piece to ‘Hyperdub 10.3’, the latest CD in Hyperdub’s ongoing series of birthday-marking collections. Following on from the label’s first two 10th anniversary compilations, the third act represented in ‘10.3’ transects and extrapolates forward the Hyperdub catalogue from yet another angle, this time following the melancholy vapour trail drafted by Burial’s numerous atmospheric beatless moments. This EP tunes in to those 11 new moments of downcast ambience that comprise half of the CD’s complete content, resulting in over 40 minutes of hitherto-unknown audio which squarely shoulder their “Extended Play” billing. Formed tangentially to Hyperdub’s main agenda of basstrax for the floor, these mini-soundtracks for films-to-come reinterpret the idea of dubtraction. Instead of merely reducing a vocal melody to echoed or reverbed vestiges, here is trace-music reduced to gaseous residuum, free of drums and often basslines, leaving only synthesised, sampled or looped textures that might hang fume-like, or rotate frictionless as mini cyclones, travelling from warped, hi-def interludes to citric synth jams, from hazy devil mixes to fleeting, blue sax solos, terminating at an eight minute modular flatline. No pulse, No heartbeat.
