Review:
Japanese producer Goth Trad is an interesting character. Some years ago, he single-handedly tried to introduce a form of music called "mad rave" - an intense and really quite insane fusion of D&B, hardcore, break core and dubstep. There are occasional echoes of that period on New Epoch - his first full-length for bass music hipsters Deep Medi - but for the most part it's a fairly careful and considered set. Mostly built around variants of dubstep rhythms, it fuses chiming melodies and clanking industrial sounds with hand-picked samples, skittering percussion and subdued, sub-shaking grooves. In parts, it has more in common with IDM than hardcore, but that's no bad thing. It's certainly his most grown-up album to date - highly recommended.