Review: Fujako - Soul Buzz

The title track depicts hip-hop in a tug-of-war with the event horizon. Drums and synthesisers are forcibly curved as gravity drags them toward a singular point, pulsing back outward in jolts of survival instinct, writhing out of the sphere of crushed matter. The electronics flail with the panic and irrationality of a loose hose (flashes of Autechre at points), while the vocals narrate their own demise with a calm that disconcerts me, bobbing amongst the constant heave and remaining limp and compliant with it. Apparently, the way to counter-act a black hole is to play dead.

From this point, Soul Buzz is a particle mist, constantly congealing and separating again. I spot the vague shape of dub reggae when everything comes together – descending staircases of slapback, bass frequencies channelling the sleep throes of the earth – but it falls apart before it can solidify, blown into a cloud of bongos, bass and hi-hat debris. My sense of depth perception is completely fucked. For all the moments that Soul Buzz feels squashed upon two-dimensional space, as though haphazardly rubber-stamped onto analogue tape, there are many more that swallow me into emptiness and sheer distance. I am crammed into a distorted amplifier cone, and stretched like a blanket across deep space.