It's both helpful and a little disorienting that the term "bass music" has grown to identify the general cross-genre hybridization of post-dubstep/funky/wonky/juke. It's helpful because it's good not to have to invoke a description with that many slashes. It's disorienting because there already was a movement called "bass music" decades back, modified by qualifiers like "Miami" or "booty." So the simultaneous incorporation of both bass musics feels a bit like some kind of inevitable "well, duh" streamlining. Frenetic 808s know no borders, and it's not like the connection was ever deliberately obscured. When Distal emerged from Atlanta with a grip of Southern hip-hop-tinged releases smartly engineered to connect those dots-- "Apple Bottom", "Eel", "Boss of the South"-- the only real surprise about his M.O. was how quick he could evolve.
Civilization, Distal's first full-length for Tectonic, is one of those albums that feels like a rapid succession of new-direction singles gathered together as an overarching summary of a growing artist. It's also expectation-defying in a very deliberate way. From the outset, leadoff track "The Sun" pushes a red-herring swath of blatant throwback acid house that nimbly clambers its way toward something more gauzy and abstract and modern. It feels like some kind of good-natured poke at the idea of hitting one obvious signifying nostalgia button, especially in following that bit with a whole album dedicated to seamless juxtapositions.
Paying homage without preserving everything in amber has been par for the course in bass music, refreshing an outlook as that might be. So there's other things that set Distal's music apart as its own thing worth isolating and following. His drum programming is often nothing short of diabolical, riding off crisp snare/kick/bass interplay that never feels overstuffed. At its best, it splits the difference between rock-solid, danceable beat programming and the percussive transcript of a wushu swordfight, steady momentum switched up with fake-out feints and advantageous jabs into open space.
And while there's a lot of pull to the tracks that go all-out one way or another -- the space-horror lurch of "Gorilla"; the tense, cavernous footwork of "Boca Ratawan"; the ghettotech jackhammer "Drop Like This"; the LTD/Lincoln Town Car/Eldorado funk of "Feed Me"-- the tracks that really jump out are the ones where polarized moods are pitted against each other. Or with each other, more accurately. Coating its trunk-rattle beat with soaring Orb-caliber ambient whooshes makes "Preach on Hustle" sound both amped up and daydream-prone. While "Temple People" is otherwise occupied with signifying deadpan cool via Rakim samples and intensely choppy kicks, a tinkly electric piano riff sneaks in to add some lightheartedness. And it's a hell of a capper to dredge up some sax-and-Rhodes smooth jazzisms for "She Wears Pearls", then slyly revealing the percussive element to be a torrential downpour of drumline rolls.
Civilization is a record that evokes so many eras and moods at once in parallel that there's a deliberate possibility of the listener losing track of all the sonic attributions. Is that drum pattern in "House Party Five" closer to UGK or Boxcutter? Are those sweeping, oscillating synths in "Not Cool" meant to pay homage to vintage techno or recent "purple" dubstep? Is that subtle integration of the "Funky Drummer" break in "Venom" inspired by 1988 hip-hop or 1993 jungle? Where do we set the dance music wayback machine, anyways? None of those questions gets a clear answer, but if you ask whether that stylistic lineage even matters, the response is a question in itself: Won't you have an easier time dancing after you pull that stick out your ass?
