Two man noise unit Petbrick continue their unstoppable march across musical boundaries. Ayan finds them sneaking in the back door of a warehouse party and dropping their usual grim industrial demeanour for a splash of the old hands-in-the-air, lost-in-the-lasers dancefloor good times. A cassette release billed as a ‘rave tape’ and wrapped in a vivid acid yellow sleeve, it’s actually more like an old 12″ with four mixes of the same track for four contrasting dance floor moods.
‘Ayan’ (Premonition Mix) is a nine minute epic that wanders through the crowd, tuning itself in to the room. A calmer, cooler cousin of the furious ‘Hanker’ off their Pet Sounds Vol. 2. Opening on a glitching, biscuit tin, snare roll which I assume Igorr is playing, or was at some point, more than on anything they’ve done before his drums are fused into Wayne’s machines. Moving through metal edged slashes, dread atmospherics and thumping bass propulsion it’s drawn helplessly in towards the speaker stack, to an ecstatic riot of squiggling acid lines and rattling drums.
If you were looking for a stamp of approval, the first remix here comes from Birmingham techno God Surgeon. He loops up the clattering drums and pushes a kind of carnival vibe that surrounds and swamps you like you’re caught in a marching band barrelling through a crowded street. It feels like some triumphant, blaring, brass is about to kick in and blow your head off any second. Instead it keeps pushing the rhythm until it becomes overwhelming. There’s a little Haitian voodoo mania in there but just as your hands shake and your eyes start to roll it cuts out.
Cardopusher goes straight for pounding bass in the chest and the red faced dancefloor rush, total banger. There’s a t-shirt for this release that mangles Aphex Twin’s logo into the initials P B and the last ‘Bubblelogue Mix’ is by the Petbrick boys themselves, tipping their hat to his influence. It starts out very Aphex, a neat homage, sways back towards something moody and more their own, then maybe a little more Venetian Snares in the drum slices as Wayne’s breakcore past cackles excitably. How this plays into their forthcoming album, as a first taste of what’s to come or more of a one-off dalliance, time will tell. But as it stands they play out their love for techno in some style. Nice one.
