Holy Tongue Add a Guitar and Keep the Groove

Basilikum arrives on AD93 and brings electric guitar and a post-punk sensibility into Holy Tongue's dub, which is a riskier move than it reads. Music built on repetition has a low tolerance for additions: one element too many and the trance breaks, leaving you with a band playing a groove rather than a groove playing you. It holds because the additions sharpen rather than fill. The guitar is used for edge and friction, not for melody, and the rhythm section keeps the slightly unsteady feel that comes from being played rather than programmed. That unsteadiness is the whole difference between this and the enormous quantity of grid-locked dub produced every year. AD93 places the record in a recognisable British line that runs from sound-system culture through post-punk and forward, a tradition more concerned with pressure and space than with speed. It is why the music functions at low volume as a mood and at high volume as a physical event. Treat it accordingly. This is not peak-time material and should not be judged as though it were. It is for the beginning of a night, the end of one, or a room with the lights off.

Label: AD93.