SickElixir is not an album much interested in gently easing the listener into its darkly claustrophobic world. The first thing you hear is roughly approximate to the distressing sound of someone alternately gasping for breath and attempting to clear their passages of phlegm. It’s joined by a distorted bass drum overlaid with a metal-on-metal clank in lieu of a snare. There’s a weird noise somewhere between radio interference and the sound of fabric tearing, some incomprehensible, sonically warped and doom-laden guttural chanting, and harsh electronic tones that churn and screech. All this is in the opening minute of the first track: notice is served that Jamie Roberts’ latest album is probably not for everyone.
This will hardly come as a shock to anyone with prior knowledge of his oeuvre. From the moment he started releasing music as Blawan – beginning in 2010 with Fram, a twitchy, unsettling take on UK bass released by revered label Hessle Audio – Roberts has cut an impressively unbiddable figure. His style was marked by an industrial darkness that even seeped into his rework of Brandy’s lush R&B track I Wanna Be Down – something he has suggested may have to do with his spectacularly grim-sounding teenage job in a maggot farm, when his working days were soundtracked by the clanging of an industrial mincer. His biggest track to date is 2012’s Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage, a relentless techno cut featuring a dive-bombing bassline and a warped sample of the Fugees. It crossed over into more mainstream DJs’ sets, albeit occasionally remixed into more palatable shapes.
Roberts’ response was to stop releasing music as Blawan for the next three years. His 2018 debut album, Wet Will Always Dry, steadfastly declined to do the things that dance producers usually do when their canvas is expanded from the limitations of a 12in single (display the breadth of their musical range; shift styles and tempos; maybe throw in a couple of high-profile guest vocalists; attempt to create something that works as a home listening experience) and instead dished up eight unremitting slabs of dense, tough, club-focused techno. Recent years have seen Roberts work in a variety of styles – including the modular synth-driven beats of the album he recorded with Pariah as Karenn, and the industrial/doom metal made as one half of duo Persher – none of which much suggested a man desperate to break through to a wider audience.
Nor has the music he has released since signing to XL, a much larger record company than Roberts has traditionally worked with. SickElixir is certainly a more varied album than Wet Will Always Dry, rhythmically and musically. It’s surprisingly free of four-four beats, instead deploying rhythms that feel rooted in hip-hop, electro or, on Style Teef, footwork, and occasionally they have the glitchy, irregular quality of an old Aphex Twin or μ-Ziq tune. But the album is also heavier going emotionally. Wet Will Always Dry was aimed at the dancefloor: as dark-hued as it was, it allowed a certain sense of cathartic release. While SickElixir – which was recorded in the wake of a struggle with addiction and the overdose deaths of several friends – is served up in bite-size three-minute chunks, they’re crammed with sound, wilfully oppressive, spattered with sudden, jolting disruptions.
The vocals are frequently guttural growls or hoarse, panicked whispers. They’re usually manipulated to the point at which you can’t make out what they’re saying, but you get the feeling it’s probably not good news. You might call Rabbit Hole psychedelic – its gushes of electronic noise and looped vocals are certainly disorientating – but if it evokes anything about the drug experience it’s the moment of sudden, queasy propulsion when the chemicals start working a little too dramatically. On Don’t Worry We Happy and the title track, it feels as if Roberts is warping the cheerfully daft sounds of old happy hardcore rave until they sound mocking and nightmarish.
It’s an album on which the atmosphere is so intense and all-pervading that even the most innocuous sounds take on an ominous air. The fluttering synth arpeggio on Creature Brigade feels eerie even before the entire track collapses into disturbing ambience. “Be quiet! Be quiet!” hisses a voice during Weirdos United: it feels threatening in context, but it’s apparently a recording of nothing more troubling than Roberts reacting to his pet dog’s snoring. When SickElixir ends, it feels like coming up for air, which gives you an idea of how immersive and overwhelming an experience it is. A headlong dive into a troubled mind working overtime, it isn’t a journey you might want to undertake on a nightly basis. That said, it’s a journey worth taking.
This week Alexis listened to
Say She She – Under the Sun
Dependably fantastic Brooklyn alt-disco trio stir slow-jam Philly soul into their cocktail of influences, with heady results.
