Black RainDark Pool

Black Rain launches their first LP in 14 years. The album called “Dark Pool” will be released in August 2014 by Blackest Ever Black. Indeed, Argabright and BEB partnership has become a great piece of news for music lovers. It started back in 2011 when the British label reissued Black Rain’s 1995 debut album “1.0” — on the compilation “Now I’m Just A Number: Soundtracks 1994-95”, thus receiving due recognition. Subsequently, and as a result of Argabright’s extensive touring, BEB released a 4-track EP of live recordings under the name of “Protoplasm”. Now, three of those tracks are part of “Dark Pool”.

Argabright’s last work is a futuristic journey and an intensely cold compound of dystopian atmospheres and heavy beats. “Dark Pool” is based on the poetry of darkness and sci-fi realms, which transports listeners to immersive soundscapes by means of the techno epic. As the label itself states: “Partly inspired by the writings of Philip K. Dick protégé K.W. Jeter (particularly 1996’s “Edge Of Human”, which picked up where Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner” left off), and Paolo Bacigalupi’s 2009 novel “The Windup Girl”, a vision of 23rd century Thailand plagued by genetic and economic terrorism, Dark Pool’s humid dystopia is also acutely Ballardian in its vision of manmade and natural worlds encroaching upon each other: a vivid psychogeography of half-submerged high-rises and hidden jungle laboratories.” The sound on its 11 tracks should recall other BEB artists such as Raime, Cut Hands or Prurient, but still has its own, perchance, more versatile trademark. Also, it features vocals (on “Profusion” and “Profusion II”) from Allison Lewis under the pseudonym of Zoe Zanias (Keluar, ex-Linea Aspera), and a brief spoken intervention from Sean Young (Rachel in “Blade Runner”).

When reading “the first LP in 14 years”, readers should instinctively understand it as “historic masterpiece”, although sometimes (many times) bands’ and artists’ comebacks are not as glorious as they were meant to be. Follow your instinct here. Black Rain’s first work in almost a decade and a half is one of those miraculously magnificent albums. On top of that, “Dark Pool” manages to rescue from the past the unique dystopian world created by industrial-futuristic icon Stuart Argabright in the nineties, wrapping it around a truly cutting edge sound. Undoubtedly haunting and wonderfully hypnotic, this album will be one of the greatest surprises for electronic music lovers in 2014.