More skankiness from the Panky players of electronic virtual reality. If you think that’s an outdated term, Volume 2 gets going with SixAm’s gun-toting hunter – that’s gun-toting as you might brandish a weapon when playing Duck Hunt, but with extra sag to its trousers and claiming ownership of the streets. Fader Murderer gets on some glitch-hop gluttony looking to cause pixel punishment: mosh-ready and certainly not a casual plug in and play, it lays down a marker for an EP chartering screwed up electro angles reanimated into a sparks-flying hotpot and taking up the gauntlet laid down by Gameboy-generated micro musicians.
J.me.J is another playing gamesmaster, the Canadian’s grime point and clicker Come N Get It next to go square-eyed while blood seeps from joystick-cradling hands. Out of gaming circles it shows complex circuitry over an otherwise clearly set march, tampering with squeaking synths set on a maze that doesn’t do shortcuts and where the producer is left cross-eyed such is the rapidity of his edits and tyrannical connections.
William Breakspear’s Million Monkeys goes apeshit. That opening line was the easiest bit; explaining the ins and outs less so, on a dubstep-drum & bass rampage that hits hard on the treble and gruffly on the bass, leaving your midriff exposed so it can plough into that as well. The tempo is again actually well-defined, which conversely makes it easier for the carnage on top to multiply, a double-team of huffing and puffing bass bellows and a ringing synth irritant goading it from on its shoulder. A certified skin-chewer for zombies to go skanking to.
SP series debutant Eddy Crusher is the first to allow for some breathing space, and though Starting Blocks is breaks at half-cock, it aims and fires nervelessly. At full speed it would be your typical Death Chase 2000 competitor – the bass would have it flying past speed cameras (trust us, we've tried). Keeping the tempo bouncy and airy creates time to think, particularly with the watercolour intervals creating dreamy spirals and emitting a surreal calmness and sensibility, despite the unremitting sound of the Skanky Panky gnash.