Noisia - Fabriclive.40 - Electronica - CD

Genre designations are pretty much useless in the world of jungle and drum'n'bass these days, when every subcategory seems to splinter into a dozen new ones within weeks of its first emergence in a British or European club. The corner of the market staked out by Noisia (a Dutch trio consisting of Nik Roos, Martijn van Sonderen, and Thijs de Vlieger) is a sort of jump-up/glitchcore/hardstep/jungle hybrid, with plenty of doom-laden samples, angry-robot basslines, and techy breakbeats dripping off the edges. Noisia's contribution to the Fabriclive series is a generous set of 29 tracks, most of them original singles previously issued on the band's own Vision and Division labels, others taken from the catalogs of Ninja Tune, Virus, and other well-respected imprints and featuring such cutting-edge artists as Spor (whose creepily brilliant "Claret's March" is one of the strangest and most fascinating tracks on the collection) and Misanthrop (whose "Viperfish" comes on with a thrillingly frantic intensity). Even Moby makes an appearance -- the word on the street is that when he heard Noisia's remix of his "Alice," it nearly convinced him to become a drum'n'bass DJ. Noisia's particular genius is the ability to take incredibly dense material and pack it tighter, spin it faster, and crank the gain up higher without ever creating a feeling of anger or claustrophobia. Very highly recommended. ~ Rick Anderson, Rovi