From the first spectral shudder of the sub-bass Oblique by Ghost Dubs summons a stream of comparisons from Drexciyan submersibles to the dub minimalism of Basic Channel. On the album opener ‘Low Times’ there is also some Kraftwerk and their ‘Hall of Mirrors’ or ‘Showroom Dummies’ and even a bit of gamelan percussion mixed up in the DNA.
Most of these tracks bear more than an industrial cladding, sounding as though they emanate from the factory floor or some boiler room full of clanking steel and pumping pistons and hissing vents. Ghost Dubs however also has a knack for bringing the limber and organic together with the robotic or industrial or decayed and ‘Low Times’ sounds almost balletic, or at least like some kind of interpretive dance. You can well imagine a shamanistic ritual played out by pipe-wielding and welding-masked men.
‘Low Times’ with its submerged shimmy cedes to ‘Cold Data’ whose rumbles of thunder open out onto a rainswept site. Staticky whooshes and the rasp of the bass push this one into the territory of say Prurient or other noise practitioners while a rolling crescendo – like of sheet metal being shaken – calls to my mind at least The Wizard of Oz and that idea of somebody tinkering behind the curtain but conjuring boldly elemental effects. ‘Cold Data’ also features a piercing organesque swell, a rapture of voices that nod to wailing or keening while remaining mechanistic and inundated or suppressed.
Not for the last time on Oblique, the next track ‘After All’ puts us in the path of an onrushing train while more industrial clanks and staticky seepage blur the line between chemical and data waste. And on the theme of factory settings and faintly disturbing musical fantasies, this one has a comic swagger which calls to mind the Oompa-Loompas singing ‘do-ba-dee-doo’. Which is to say that amid the roiling bass and clanking industry and minimal variations on a dubby theme, Ghost Dubs on Oblique seems less concerned with maintainig one taut atmosphere than he is about drawing out those variants and getting even a little bit playful and loose.
‘Soft Collapse’ sounds more muted, with organ keys or the puffs of a saxophone shunting and shimmying in the backdrop while a crisp wall of static crowds the front of the scene. Ghost Dub introduces and then surreptitously removes all kinds of textures and elements, as the listener might variously discern something like the clapping of castanets or characas, a silty guiro rattle and canine howls. There is also a hauntological aspect to the album as fairground ditties or pitch-shifted ice cream jingles ring out to apparitional effect, with all of these elements flickering and dissipating behind the basic rhythm, a spare and muffled stutter-step.
‘Long Way to Go’ descends by undersea elevator or bathysphere then steps through velvety curtains into a louche tropical club. We find ourselves in something like the Copacabana only underwater but ‘Long Way to Go’ shifts aspect somewhat, propelling itself through the insistency of its beat to dry ground where we hear aeroplanes and drones flying overhead. King Tubby becomes more of a touchstone as Oblique begins to embrace classic dub with ‘Blackout Dust’ swarming with latent energy, like a vast beam of light or a tremulous electromagnetic throb that completely inhabits the space. ‘Blackout Dust’ sounds at once beatific and scary for its sheer overwhelming force of energy then quietly, almost furtively dissipates or chugs out.
‘Dead Channel’ sounds like an anvil shaping metal while ‘Attack’ opens with the revving of wheels upon road or amid the storm and churn of another wet weather event. Static washes over the mix and the traces of industry sound even more clangorous before the beat drops and we get real wobbly. ‘Attack’ then surges hypnotically accentuated by blips and beeps and even as something lashes forcefully into one side of the mix.
Ghost Dubs slows everything right down on the aptly named ‘Overthinking’ where the dub is more staggered and jellied, then slinks around like nineties trip hop with just a hint of spookiness. And on ‘Decay’ a woozy opening full of static casts in shadow the image of a magus or alchemist bringing liquids to the boil while steadily clicking their fingers. It’s another fine dubby workout which also features some vocals, thoroughly mutated.
The penultimate track ‘Bombed Suburbs’ is almost a respite, something more skeletal and even apprehensive or frail. Splunking water droplets eventually take on the substance of say a mbira or xylophone or other such chimes and a reggae twang lies deep within the mix. But the track sounds less like a riff on reggae than someone huffing gas even as it seems to embed – at least at moments – the hooting of owls and sweeps of human voice which might be no more than remnants of the stricken and shelter-bound wildlife.
‘Almost Structure’ is then a thesis statement for this compositional practice, just the whir and churn of percussive rhythm and deep bass, a redolence of the dub techno or minimalism of Basic Channel, a train chugging on straight down the line which wobbles in trance-like or hallucinatory fashion to become the train of dreams, its horn blaring ever louder until the impression fades.
