Gridlok & Mindscape – Red Six [Blackout NL]

One of the founders of the sound returns to his roots with his debut album on Blackout Recordings. Gridlok being long time Californian and staple in the american drum and bass scene has seen trends come and go but has stayed true to his craft throughout the past decade. Gridlok now resides in Amsterdam which is turf for many hard hitting drum and bass acts, Black Sun Empire being one of them. He now joins forces with the dutch trio to release his 5th studio album featuring 13 no holds barred contributions to the table. Lets dive into his collaboration with Mindscape for one of my favorite tracks on the album.

Red Six starts its tone with metallic sounds and whimpered digital effects from straight inside a network meshed with systems failing. Mechanical wanes and bleeps fill the soundscape with a sense of electronic dread as full time snares are building into the forefront. A brief glimpse of a growling bassline can be heard teasing the atmosphere. The atmosphere breaks into a downward spiral of madness before dropping into a gritty and clean display of force cutting into the deep reaches of your brain as full time drums come into play. Red six takes you on a journey of carefully crafted fills and effects progressing the tune along a series of events you can imagine dystopian stories unfold in your imagination.

The rest of the LP follows suite with the theme bringing you strictly heavy and technologically inspired drum and bass thats in a class of its own. You can pick up this Cyberpunk-ish thriller of an album now on Blackout Recordings NL. Give it a listen here!