regis: manbait

Manbait is a survey of Regis's 2010-'15 productions and remixes for Blackest Ever Black. In addition to three originals (in several different versions) and his celebrated remixes of Raime, Vatican Shadow, Ike Yard, and Dalhous, it features three previously unreleased tracks: a Regis take on a lost song by his own teenage synth-punk group Family Sex, an alternate mix of Tropic of Cancer's "Plant Lilies at My Head," and an edit of his own "Blinding Horses." Regis -- real name Karl O'Connor -- requires little in the way of introduction. Founder of the Downwards label, lynchpin of the late Sandwell District collective, one half of British Murder Boys (with Surgeon), and instigator of numerous other projects (among them Ugandan Methods, Concrete Fence, Kalon, and Sandra Electronics), the eternally shape-shifting O'Connor is one of techno's last true visionaries. O'Connor's arrival on Blackest Ever Black in 2010 coincided with a radical recalibration, and heightening, of his production work, and the tracks collected on Manbait document nothing less than an artist at the peak of his powers. One can hear elements of Sandwell District's Berlin-incubated warehouse minimalism, the brutish dancefloor provocations of Regis's '90s Downwards material (what will always be known, against his wishes, as 'The Birmingham Sound'), the DIY drone-pop and darkwave of Sandra Electronics, the high-torque breakbeat experiments of British Murder Boys. Throughout the listener is treated to some of the most morbidly atmospheric sound design in all electronic music (the shadowplay of '80s goth and industrial made thrillingly contemporary), and to urgent, cyclical, ruthlessly avant-garde drum-programming informed by jungle, dubstep, and grime... but always unmistakably, irreducibly Regis. Manbait's key track actually predates O'Connor's association with Blackest Ever Black by several months: "C U 1," a nauseous, low-slung production credited to his alias Cub, and originally self-released, incognito, on an imprint of the same name in April 2010. With its coarsely broken-beat, disarmingly slow tempo, and deep pools of low-end pressure, it set the tone for O'Connor's productions in the ensuing half-decade. In 2015, five years after its release, it's still pretty much untouchable. All tracks mastered and cut by Matt Colton at Alchemy, London, except "Loss (Regis Version)," mastered by Veronica Vasicka, and "C U 1," mastered by CGB at Dubplates & Mastering. CD housed in full-color digipak. With exquisite cover art (Survivor, 1987) by none other than Val Denham, this is an anthology that no conscientious stableboy or girl can refuse. Life hurts!