A dub masterclass in session with Rhythm & Sound’s unfathomably deep 2001 treks into the aether…

As Rhythm & Sound, Moritz von Oswald and Mark Ernestus naturally pursued the entropic decay of Maurizio and Basic Channel’s momentous club energy to a logically downbeat sound that still bristles with their previous projects’ residual energies. Minted in 1996 with a string of reggae mutations, proper, by the end of that decade Rhythm & Sound had transitioned into a far more oblique style and pattern with the likes of ‘Trace’ and its follow-up ‘Aground / Aerial’ that distilled their aesthetic at its most vaporous and intoxicating. Using hardware from Detroit and lessons from Jamaican dub, they formulated a peerless technique of studio-as-instrument production that spawned a whole genre of imitators, but has never been bettered.

In the 9 minute of ’Trace’ it’s possible to pick out an a trotting groove unfurling amid the thick blanket of dub noise, making it feel something like a Lee “Scratch” Perry piece emerging from the charred remains of the Black Ark, or likewise in the uncanny process of re-entering the amniotic smoulder. However with ‘Imprint’ they push that aesthetic much deeper into the abstract, filtering out swathes of frequencies and sculpting the envelopes to leave only a smudged impression of what was there; a music that almost imperceptibly perfuses you’re listening space, syncing to your breathing and heart rate, centring in a seemingly eternal moment.