It doesn’t happen very often that well-established artists move out of their comfort-zone. Even less often, when we’re talking about a debut that we’ve been awaiting for more than six years and 22 EPs. »Black Light Spiral« by Untold is neither the dubstep of 2008 nor the pressing techno of 2012, even though the latter has already shown us Untold’s fable for dirt and surges of adrenalin. To be frank: »Black Light Spiral« is raw as fuck! Those trying to dance to this sound will get their heads cracked wide open, as illustrated through the little porcelain-pig on the record’s cover. Through all the eight tracks, Untold generates pure chaos. With deep industrial thumping and sirens of police-cars and air-raids, he throws us straight into anarchy at the very beginning. Stuttering voices make up a rhythm. Things are swooshing and echoing. You’ll see light cones cutting through thick smoke, dimly showing us the skeletons of trampled technology. What remains are ruins and lots of melted debris. Untold doesn’t bother to get rid of the muddy rests or the dust made of sweat. His sound remains imperfect, just the way he wants it, raw and dirty. Funnily, in the 2014, this approach seems anachronistic and revolutionary at the same time. Anachronistic because Untold uses techno as if the last 20 years haven’t happened, as if the Bunker-club in Berlin was still standing. Meaning: structure-wise, it could have been much more elaborate than this. Yet, revolutionary because a motherfucker-record like this one stands out between all the spit-shined preset music of these days. It hits you right in the face. It’s almost a huge relief, a wake-up-call for the escapists we’ve become.
Black Light Spiral
