sabaturin: kenemglev

Bourbonese Qualk legend Simon Crab meets Charles Beullac (Galerie Statique) in a volley of brooding, dubbed-out industrial/illbient misfits for Lisbon’s Holuzam, the young affiliate label of the renowned Príncipe Simon Crab is nothing less than a true pioneer of British post-industrial music, with a catalogue of prototypical dark ambient, groove-driven industrial, and hardcore techno practically unparalleled in his field. In collaboration with Canadian artist Charles Beullac, ‘Kenemglev’ speaks to the range and nuance of Crab’s output while introducing Beullac’s likeminded industrial audness to new ears; yielding nine tracks of sleepwalking industro-dub rhythms and tormented electronica blessed with a nocturnal allure that places their work in fine company amid Holuzam’s roster of off-road esoteric groovers. The title ‘Kenemglev’ means “consensus’ in Breton, and smartly describes their mutual efforts to explore a sort of neutral no-person’s-land or virtual middle ground between their respective musical languages. In suit, all the tracks are titled in Breton - itself a mix of French and English - and their un/familiar nature is reflected in the music’s angularities and secretive feel, roving from Mille Plateaux-like glitch in ‘Douakek’, to the air-stepping pads of ‘Direnker’, and crispy noirish jazz hustle streaked with intercepted radio signals and keening crowd noise in ‘Razheta’, while ’Skaotan’ comes off like a glitching Raime workout, and the squashed break trip of ‘Berzh’ recall Spectre or Scorn.