- Killekill is a young Berlin label run by Nico Deuster, AKA DJ Flush. Their first two releases came earlier this year, but surprisingly, HH3 is perhaps the first that most people could readily identify as a product of the city. It's got all the same attributes as a Marcel Dettmann piece. Stark minimalism, clanking machinations and enormous space between the beats. And for adjectives, there's those two bromides which are too perfectly descriptive to ignore; "relentless" and "uncompromising." The title track wins all these labels with disarming simplicity. It may not be industrial in the traditional sense, but everything else points that way. The claps are like shovels driven into a pile of coal. The hook blips rhythmically like a heart monitor, though for some giant machine rather than a human. The part most faithful to Berlin's aesthetic, however, is the sketch-like composition. The track ends with a flurry of steamy noise, like someone jammed a wrench in the rusty cogs.
On the B-side, Sandwell District ups the power, though only slightly. Despite significant modifications, the mood remains much the same. That's not a problem—it's just a legitimate symptom of reworking something so skeletal. This time, the heart monitor charts the occasionally quickening pace and accompanying tension. Last comes probably the most interesting piece, "Trilogy." It's surprising, adopting a two-step drum pattern and showing remarkable tenderness given the bleakness found elsewhere on the record. A bleary synth wanders uncertainly through the track's duration, while a hurried arp skitters alongside. If the previous material speaks entirely of machines, here the focus is the tribulations of their grim operators.
Tracklist A1 HH3
B1 HH3 (Sandwell District Remix)
B2 Trilogy