Carmen Villain Nutrition EP

Carmen Villain descends deeper into the mutant dub vortex on 'Nutrition', infusing the residue of classic Pole/~Scape, Mark Ernestus and vintage Chain Reaction with a mossy potency that surprisingly and rather brilliantly lines up next to recent work by Carrier and the flickering embers of T++.

After a critically acclaimed last proper album, 'Only Love From Now On', last year's sensual (almost beatless) 'Music from the Living Monument', and a pair of 12” collabs with Huerco S. and Actress, Villain sinks further into viscous dub on this one, keeping it strictly moody, in thrall to the deepest bass vibrations.

Undulating, rubbery thuds poke thru a swarming drone on ‘Disig’, assisted by legendary Norwegian trumpet player Eivind Lønning, whose lip smacks and intakes of breath are woven tightly between the giddy shuffles. Exactly what's electronic and what isn’t remains entirely unclear; the track snakes in on itself, rattling and rushing until it dissipates completely and all that’s left is the hum of the studio.

She meets burial mix subs with trilling concrète knocks on the title track, blunting each sound so the rhythm seems to shift beneath waterlogged dirt and sand. Like that opener, it all feels perplexingly electro-acoustic, never losing its groove; with the propulsive smack of T++'s enduring 'Wireless' muddled with the marooned smokiness of Andrew Pekler to keep the track breathing without overcomplicating things for a second.

On 'Marka', Villain turns environmental recordings into a rippling phantom pulse. There's the fizzing dub assymetry of Pole on show, but she tears away from her influences by training her focus on the music's lysergic qualities, not its blazed effect. At times, 'Nutrition' is as hypnotic as Sam Dunscombe's 'Two Forests', fractalising its rolling subs and nervous kicks with haunted, dissociated creaks from far beyond the pineal.

It’s all intricately constructed, deceptively bare-boned, special stuff.