Son Raw is 8-track only
Livity Sound is a growing concern. What started as a vinyl-only label for Peverelist, Kowton and Asusu to explore intersections between Bass Music and Techno has since grown into a festival-favorite live project and a musical collective that’s carved out its own unique space, one that’s acted as a Trojan horse for the dubbed out darkness that Bristol’s best known for. Now, with the release of their self titled compilation gathering their material for a digital audience, the trio behind Livity not only make a strong case for their unique brand of skewed Techno, they’ve released a record that puts every other Brit working in the style to shame.
At its core, Livity Sound asks what Techno might sound like if made by producers who have no real interest that genre’s 4X4 dogma, preferring to substitute it for bouncy, broken low end borrowed from Reggae, Dancehall, Garage, Jungle and Dubstep. The man leading this mission is Tom Ford, AKA Peverelist. Already a bridge linking Dubstep’s original generation with the more restrained styles of followers like Hessle Audio, Pev’s latest productions don’t constitute a break with his previous work so much as a canny repackaging: barring a slight shift in tempo, none of his contributions to Livity Sound deviate from his M.O of punchy, broken percussion, dark Berlin-inspired textures and gargantuan low end. SERIOUSLY guargantuan low end: play this on quality monitors and watch your neighbors lose their shit. Complementing this foundation is Kowton, who’s drum machine workouts grab from Grime and Electro in equal measure, and Asusu who comes closest to pure Techno’s forward propulsion but with a dubwise rudeness unseen in more traditional quarters.
Together, their various permutations combine to form a project that’s as much a “band” with multiple songwriters as it is a label. Bar Asusu’s “Rendering,” which never achieves lift off and Kowton’s “Jam01,” an obvious DJ tool that falls flat out of context, the results are consistently thrilling. There’s reconfigured Jungle (“Aztec Chant”), Dubstep under another name (Remnants, Livity), Warehouse Grime (“More Games”) and Techno-tinged Garage (“Sister”) and that’s just disc 1. Crucially, these tracks don’t feel like obvious genre exercises but instead the natural results of experiments seeking to combine past influences with contemporary ideas. Like their closest spiritual predecessor, Skull Disco, Livity Sound’s only constant signifiers are bassweight and darkness – everything else can be reinforced, removed or reconfigured for maximum effect. It’s a bold approach and one that holds well for their future. With their collaborative live show already twisting these tracks into new shapes, it’s hard not see Livity Sounds open-minded approach paying dividends for years to come.
