- "Wot Do U Call It?"—the title of one of Wiley's early singles—has doubled as a slogan for UK dance music for over a decade, exemplified in the current wave of producers stewing grime, dubstep and house into a melting pot of powerful beats. Visionist is at the forefront of this. He emerges on Leisure System, the catchall Berlin label, with a scorching three-tracker that renders such questions unnecessary—because this is straight-up grime.
Like most of his work to date, this 12-inch isn't just Wiley worship. "Snakebite" manages to distill the essence of the classic stuff without wearing it too overtly. It's there in the violent gun cocks—a clever percussive element that recalls a lineage running from Terror Danjah's "Cock Back" to Burial's "Distant Lights." "Snakes" is like a more delirious version of the same track, with a coat of iridescent synths wrapping around the beat like a wet blanket. Burying its percussion so deep it's coming from the next room, "Poison" bears a spiritual resemblance to Wiley's Devil Mixes, and the gun sound effects shine off the backdrop of vivid synth work. All three tracks are variations on a theme, but then that's kind of what grime's always been like—and this EP carries its no-bullshit spirit as well as any.
TracklistA1 Snakes
A2 Snakebite
B Poison