Kevin Martin has been familiar with duo settings since he and
Justin K. Broadrick coalesced in the early '90s as
Techno Animal, but the
Bug man has seemed particularly keen to operate in that formation since meeting with drone sorcerer
Dylan Carlson for 2017's
Concrete Desert. After that previous
Bug album,
Martin reactivated
King Midas Sound with only
Roger Robinson and essentially resumed
Techno Animal beside
Broadrick under the name
Zonal.
In Blue is another duo recording. In a sense, the album picks up where the first half of
Angels & Devils left off, splaying its fusion of narcotized vocals, threatening atmospheres, and entrancing riddims. The material originates in instrumentals
Martin made for a 2018 Solid Steel radio program. Post-transmission, the producer was seeking a vocalist for the tracks and met his match when
Dis Fig asked for his consent to use
KMS' "On My Mind" in a DJ mix.
Martin obliged and was seduced in turn by
Dis Fig's
Purge, which led to the pair working over a two-year period on the shaping of the sixth
Bug album. Throughout
Purge,
Dis Fig tended to submerge her voice in sheets of noise and switched between eldritch phrasings, reverberant screams, and fraught quaverings. There's less volatility over these convulsive dancehall deconstructions from
Martin. Her voice is more beguiling and intimate, often just above a whisper, sometimes in an anxious state verging on panic, and intermittently erotic, if never as explicit as
Robinson's readings on
KMS'
Solitude. Given that the bulk of the beats on
Concrete Desert played out in slow motion, it's a thrill to hear
Martin stimulate hip and neck movement again. His juddering drums and cone-toasting bass frequencies are dispensed with more clarity and crispness than ever, while the swarming ambient FX are in full effect, never quite overpowering
Dis Fig. Only on the closing "End in Blue" does the voice of
Martin's partner dissipate, and once it does, it's already missed, prompting an impulsive rewind. ~ Andy Kellman
