#dub-techno

#dub-techno

Lateral draws from a rich well of influences, most of them concentrated in the 1990s and very early 2000s: the scuff and interference of classic IDM, the swooning deep house of Larry Heard and Glenn Underground, and, most auspiciously, the dub techno of Basic Channel and its Chain Reaction imprint.

In the five years that they've been active, it sometimes seems as if Purelink are dissolving right before our eyes. They've never again released anything quite as corporeal or propulsive as their debut EP, which paired visceral dub techno with rolling drum'n'bass. On their 2023 debut album, , glitchy drums crackled in a pastel haze, and last year's was even more ethereal; the trio's individual identities melted together under cover of amorphous arrangements that suggested fogbanks, blizzards, and other zero-visibility conditions.

Dub techno is something I always reach for at this time of year, cold but with a crackle of heat at its heart. Pioneered in the early 90s and blending stern techno with kindlier ambient and the sagely nodding offbeat of dub, it has been a deep, slow current in dance culture ever since and still has excellent new proponents such as Purelink, Cousin and the Glasgow producer Conna Haraway (who also heads up the labels co:clear and Index:Records).

Sooner or later, everyone who loves dub techno becomes acquainted with the gossamer tenor of Paul St. Hilaire. His voice gets stretched and pulled across so many of the greatest records in the genre, from his early collabs with Basic Channel's Mark Ernestus and Moritz von Oswald to his rousing appearance on Intrusion's late-period benchmark The Seduction of Silence in 2009.