Arca, WWWINGS, and the rise of Post-Bass
Still taken from KABLAM’s music video for “CLOSE(D)”
Thanks to a refreshingly brilliant new wave of producers, an exhilarating, abstract style has crept its way into the contemporary experimental electronic underground. Mixing post-industrial themes with elements of UK bass, glitch hop, wonky, grime, and sound collage, this growing trend gloriously reinvents conventional dancefloor motifs by using club sounds as a vehicle for left-field, mechanical, and often highly surreal sonic exploration.
Atmospheric synths and jittery, hip hop-influenced percussion remain staples of Post-Bass, a style ostensibly pioneered by Venezuelan-born, London-based producer Arca. Two of his releases, 2013′s &&&&& mixtape and 2014′s debut Xen LP, are some of the earliest examples of the genre. On “Knot,” distorted drums serve as the backdrop to the song’s jumpy, psychedelic synth squeals. Other instances of Alejandro Ghersi’s intoxicating sound design include Xen’s gorgeous, layered opener “Now You Know” and Mutant’s absolutely phenomenal title track.
Ghersi’s style can also be heard in the works of experimental artists such as Elysia Crampton, WWWINGS, Swan Meat, Lotic, Rabit, M.E.S.H., and Why Be. All of these producers share a distinct, alluring sound, often incorporating loud, bass-heavy percussion, melodic and sometimes complex synth arrangements, looped/glitched samples assembled in a collage-like fashion, and a sonic aesthetic that commonly takes inspiration from Latin electronic, R&B, industrial, and rap. Songs like Kablam’s stunning M.E.S.H. x Future mashup serve as infernal pieces that aim to bring abrasively surreal reverberations to the dancefloor, while spacier tracks such as Elysia Crampton’s “Axacan” and WWWINGS’ “CHIMERA” are heady slices of futuristic sound art.
Essential labels include Berlin imprint PAN, Genome 6.66 Mbp, digital collective NON Worldwide, and Rabit’s rising Halcyon Veil, all of which have contributed some of the scene’s most memorable singles and releases. NON--a netlabel founded by Chino Amobi, Nkisi, and Angel-Ho--operates as a “collective of African artists, and of the diaspora, using sound as their primary media, to articulate the visible and invisible structures that create binaries in society, and in turn distribute power.” Their first ever V/A comp, released back in 2015, is Post-Bass at its most grimy and club-oriented. RudeBoyz’ aptly named “Gqom Originators” takes heavy influence from South African House music, using tribal rhythms and hypnotic drone loops for its eclectic musical forefront. NON would later drop Why Be’s ambient Lumapit Sa Akin Paraiso OST mix and Dedekind Cut’s excellent $uccessor album in 2016. Both of these releases saw bass music (or at least the next step in its evolution) heading into ethereal, almost new age territory.
Similar to the mark artists like Burial and The Bug left on its parent genre, the leaders of Post-Bass are crafting an invigorating sound of tomorrow that’s currently influencing countless up-and-coming beatmakers and collagists, both from and beyond the post-internet electronica sphere. If vaporwave attempted to produce a unique brand of stark futurisim by using pop culture references in its visual art and samples in its music, then Post-Bass is taking those arresting themes of bleak postmodernism and advancing them even further. Samples are definitely not uncommon in the works of Arca, Crampton, ssaliva, Swan Meat, and Lotic, but they’re often used as exotic sonic flourishes or brief, fragmented loops, rather than the foundation for a song.
Appearing seemingly out of nowhere on SoundCloud, Viancy’s Attic is an anonymous figure who explores the ambient, more drone-heavy side of the genre with his/her two tracks “Gods Favorite” and “Jjjj Chord.” Dexter and Zac’s “gassed” also remains a cult anomaly within Post-Bass circles, yet it’s one of the best songs the genre has to offer. The three-minute piece’s murky synth riffs, club percussion, and stuttering loops are on par with tracks from more established producers such as Kablam, Exit Sense, Dexter Duckett, Ptwiggs, Oil XL, and Coucou Chloe.
Once you listen to a few mixes from JEROME (or the equally amazing O FLUXO) or fall down the rabbit hole that is SoundCloud’s “related tracks” feature, it quickly becomes apparent that this is one of the most rapidly growing and wonderfully diverse scenes happening right now. The enthralling, mind-bending, and innovative sound design of this sizable group of experimentalists is vastly dissimilar to any Internet-born microgenre we’ve seen in the last five years, which makes a song from Bygone or Diego Navarro all the more engaging.
Below you can stream The Cement Garden, a mix we made which collects some of the genre’s greatest tracks:
Arca - Alive [0:00]
WWWINGS - MEMORY GATE (FT. KID SMPL) [3:32]
Swan Meat - REQUIEM TORSO [8:25]
Embaci - Flight and Destruction (Prod. Elysia Crampton) [10:22]
Dexter Duckett & Bridget Docherty - THE TWILIGHT OF THE SPECTACLE [13:45]
IVVVO - Love [17:15]
Angel-Ho - Inside the Flux of the Mind [19:23]
Elysia Crampton - Cumbia Tornado [Remix] [23:43]
Arca - En [27:40]
Ptwiggs - Clarity [30:34]
WWWINGS - If There Is No You, Then There Is No Me [33:48]
Arca - Excerpts from Entrañas mixtape [44:05]
WHY BE - WHALIN (TERMINATOR REMIX) [47:35]
WWWINGS, SWAN MEAT & ssaliva - BACKLASH [49:53]
M.E.S.H. - Infra-Dawn [53:32]
WWWINGS - AHEAD OF THE GAME [58:15]
Arca - Sever [1:02:23]
Viancy’s Attic - Gods Favorite [1:04:28]
TCF - 54 C6 05 1C 13 CC 72 E9 CC DC 84 F2 A3 FF CC 38 1E 94 0D C0 50 5C 3E E8 [1:07:30]
Dexter Duckett - SNOWFLAKE [1:11:48]
Rabit - Bloody Eye [1:13:37]
KABLAM - CLOSE(D) [1:16:08]
Amnesia Scanner - AS Chingy [1:19:05]
SILKER - weak [1:21:05]
Arca - Extent [1:23:45]
Arca - Soichiro [1:26:06]
Rabit & Elysia Crampton - After Woman (for Bartolina Sisa) [1:30:34]
