Review Summary: Intricate, high-speed drum & bass made for the club.
Of all genres of music to write about, electronic music - especially loud, danceable electronic music - is one of the most challenging. The listener has the extremely difficult task of imagining how a song would sound live while tapping away at a computer, and at the same time keeping the critical mindset needed to write a decent analysis or review. It’s near impossible to picture a club or festival atmosphere sitting at a desk mid-afternoon with headphones on and a blank page in front of you. Flashing lights illuminating a dark room, massive bass speakers powered by tens of thousands of watts, people packed in like sardines bouncing around for hours on end, and the DJ dropping the song in the environment in which it was meant to be played are all things that can completely change how a song sounds, especially to someone who is trying to think analytically about the music.
Then again, sometimes a producer comes along and crafts the music so that it almost seems like it’s meant to be played live. A song can be so evocative of that crazy, hyper feeling of a club that the aforementioned reviewer can hear the song in his lit room and imagine pretty accurately how it sounds live, making the review that much easier. InsideInfo, a relatively fresh face in a drum & bass scene where most famous and critically acclaimed artists have been around for at least ten years or so, is one such producer. His drums are so neurotic, his synth leads so dark and nasty, that it’s easy to imagine a massive festival crowd going wild when the man drops a track like “Awkward” or “Honey Bee” during a set. InsideInfo’s particular sound is a quality that’s garnered a lot of attention and pushed him to the front of the neurofunk scene, getting him signed to major drum & bass label Viper Recordings. It was there that InsideInfo released his Grow EP, neurofunk that sets the energy level high and keeps it there throughout its almost 40 minutes.
If nothing else, this EP seems tailor-made to cause mayhem in a crowd of club-goers. Lead track “I Am Something Else” starts out with a droning, repetitive computerized voice saying the track’s title over and over again over a half-time beat, slowly building up until the drums switch to standard double-time and InsideInfo’s trademark synths kick in. After that, fast drums and snarly, twisty synth leads seem to pump adrenaline straight into the ears. In the same vein, the drums and vocal sample in “Real World” echo and glitch eerily, instilling a sense of paranoia in the listener until the drums thump ominously and cut out. The track then comes back with an intensity that synergizes with the intro well, with the neurotic sound that InsideInfo does so well hammered into the brain with this shifting yet insistent song.
InsideInfo also makes clear on this EP that his production skills are very good. In “Bottled,” he creates an intricate background of bottles clinking and splashing, over which he lays an unsettling electronic instrumentation. “Grow” immerses the listener in an almost otherworldly buildup before dropping him into a landscape of growling synths and severe drums. At times, it feels like it would be perfect for building up tension for an epic Hollywood battle, but the way it never really has an over-the-top climax keeps the cheesy nature prevalent in a lot of drum & bass today at a minimum while still sounding consistent with the other tracks. InsideInfo seems to step a little out of his comfort zone to produce “Didgeridoo,” which gives the impression of a roaring beast that’s chained up rather than let loose like we see in most of his other songs. However, the more toned-down snarls end up contrasting nicely with the rest of the EP and show how InsideInfo can in fact deliver a less aggressive piece of work if he wants to.
This EP is far from perfect, though. The melodic synth leads of “Hear Me Roar” don’t quite fit in with the frenetic drums, and the quasi-vocal samples feel dissimilar enough to the driving bassline to jar the listener uncomfortably. The piece as a whole simply feels awkward and doesn’t stand well with the other tracks, unlike “Didgeridoo”. Also, the Audio remix of “Honey Bee” is similar enough to InsideInfo’s style of production to sound like it almost could have been produced by InsideInfo himself, but it’s different enough to stick out almost painfully rather than fitting nicely with the other tracks. On the whole, though, this EP is an enjoyable listen and evokes the feeling of being in a dark, erratically-lighted club very well. If InsideInfo can improve on his sound and make his releases slightly more coherent he’ll be a talent to watch in the future.
Recommended Tracks: I Am Something Else, Real World, Grow
