Kwaidan

Kwaidan is a one-off project inspired by Masaki Kobayashi's movie of the same name. Mat Ranson, known more for his work under his Fisk Industries guise, turns his hand to a longer format narrative, dispensing with his more usual hip hop styled rhythms for a more fluid darker style of slow burning techno.

Awash with kinetic energy, the music bristles with texture and ghostly treated sound sources, aiming to hint at the eerieness of Kobayashi's original ghost stories. Two tracks, each close to 12 minutes, and wound around a similar trajectory, built upon intricate punchy drum programming, pounding out an incessant rhythm with waves of sawblade synths vying for attention against an aggresive low-end bass, trying to rend and pull apart the forward motion.

Using the longer time frame, themes are able to fully develop and be explored with subtle nuance, slowly building up a sense of dread and claustrophobic foreboding, whilst simultaneously allowing more space for the sound to breathe, and a more natural flow and ebb to the listening experience.

This is the first in Highpoint Lowlife's series of digital 12"s - high quality mastered releases, available exclusively only as FLAC or 320kbps MP3s.

Sound sample for track 2 : Masaki, is available over at the HPLL site here and you can buy the digital EP for only £3.00 here