Like most electronic dance genres, the centrality of anonymity to dubstep has been a bit overstated. The greatest strength of the genre right now is the fact that there's a unique niche for every producer, or at least those who deign to nichedom instead of making their name as a scene-hopping rhythmic polyglot. So there's something weirdly blank about the idea of a producer who, having already burned through a couple of other pseudonyms, decides to make his name as a post-dubstep figure by picking his own postal code as an alias.
And that might be by design. 2562-- né Dave Huismans, aka A Made Up Sound-- has put the idea across that dubstep is more of a chassis than a full vehicle for his style, and it's not just the geographical distance from Croydon that sets his music apart. With an interest in a wide-spanning range of techno sounds and a background in broken beat, Huismans made his initial impacts with a pair of 2007 singles-- "Channel Two" and "Kameleon"-- that blended mutated, uptempo 2-step rhythms with glassy synths to compellingly frigid effect. And, as the album Aerial proved the following year, it was an aesthetic he was able to draw some intriguing cross-pollinations from, owing as much to classic Orbital as it did the latest sounds out of South London.
But if his new album Unbalance is a progression, it's a regimented one. Where Aerial ran a wide BPM range, used chord progressions that fluctuated between ravey and ambient, and traded on a tension between static-filled negative space and percussive snap, Unbalance is a bit more confined and busy, establishing a narrow tempo window-- quickly paced, with little breathing room-- and sticking to it. It's one of those odd albums where nearly every track sounds good, but it's all so singleminded and monolithic in its approach that taking it in as a whole almost feels smothering.
In single-serving doses, it's easy to get drawn in, and picking any individual track off this album will reveal its own unique touches: the keyboards hacked up into skipping-CD stutters that make up the melodic undercurrent of "Flashback", the jump-cut vibes and mosquito Moogs in "Dinosaur", the slow build of the title track from floating dead-satellite gristle to densely stammering percussion punctuated by panicked-sounding organ stab chords. And "Love in Outer Space", the first single off the album, is one of Huismans' nerviest pieces of drum programming, a frenetic trap/kick/clap Benihana act that becomes only more jolting when a bank of borderline-acid synths jumps in to act as a manic counter-rhythm.
In comparison to Great Lengths-- the latest album from his closest analogue, fellow countryman and stylistic shapeshifter Martyn-- 2562's latest is missing a bit in the area of soulfulness, or much of a human touch at all. That's a serious bonus if you're in the right mindframe; revisiting this album when it's 15 degrees out and it gets dark before 5 p.m. could do it some good. And in the search to find a specific track to single out as a detriment, I couldn't do much worse than finding analogues to tracks where he did certain tricks more deftly-- i.e., the conga drums on "Narita" being reminiscent of but not quite as lively as "Kameleon". Just keep in mind that listening to this entire album's one-note routine in one sitting-- great as that note can be-- may lead you to believe that 2562 is more indistinct and anonymous than he really is.
