- In my recent interview with Ed Upton, he explained how at the beginning of his career he was into "banging music...early Rephlex, which was very hard, and Mike Dred—just pretty hard techno at that point." And though the Londoner is now best known as electro/acid/boogie aficionado DMX Krew, his EDMX alias has largely kept that love for the banging stuff alive. Upton has a kindred spirit in Power Vacuum—the label has released a handful of his industrial-grade records since 2012. The latest, Mind Mechanixx, is the third EDMX 12-inch of 2016 and the most grisly, its five tracks trading in huge, distorted beats and creepy, noxious synths.
What's especially great about Mind Mechanixx—and, really, much of Upton's music in general—is that you can't tell exactly when it was made. Most of these tracks sound ripped from the '90s Rephlex catalog, like the mystic, metallic bounce of "Girder 86" and "Half Life"'s blown-out acid stomp. "Dastardly" does some mean IDM business in an early AFX/Polygon Window vein, and brawny highlight "Late Result" rumbles and slashes with murderous abandon. "Threshold," for all its pulverizing drum work, is the least developed here, but given the number of likeminded bangers Upton stuffed his EP with, it hardly makes a difference.
TracklistA1 Half Life
A2 Dastardly
B1 Threshold
B2 Late Result
B3 Girder 86