Black Dog At Juno Download

Review: The first of two promised Darkhaus volumes from veteran Sheffield trio The Black Dog arrives on Ostgut Ton's Unterton imprint, and predictably, it's something of a belter. "Council Flat Emptiness" is a rolling piece of analogue techno funk bathed in a wash of cascading dystopian synth textures; it's preceded by the "Stripped" version which pulls all the decorative elements back to just a simple combination of raw bass and lysergic stabs. Luke Slater makes a welcome return to his LB Dub Corp alias with his remix; giving it an industrial overhaul with mammoth kick drums, it puts everything except the juggernaut bassline into a digital blender, slowly building up to a crescendo of whirring bitcrushed noise which mingles with a surprisingly funky melody. In a landscape full of increasingly dry techno, The Black Dog are a consistent breath of fresh air.