- Watching Michael Rathbun develop has been fascinating, because he tends to swallow whole every sound and genre he encounters, and then spits them back up into something edgy. The concoctions vary in quality, from edge-of-your-seat jitters to midtempo mush, but when he's on, he's really on. The Shadow Egg precedes his forthcoming second album on Tectonic, and it's a salivating taster of what the Atlanta producer has been up to lately.
"Ridge City," which will be on the LP, is the most curious, stringing hyperactive percussion over a thick synth pummeled by low-end. The closest analogue would be DJ Rashad's newer material, but Rathbun has a sci-fi tinge, more Boards Of Canada than it is hip-hop. Dipping into the grimy waters that seem to be washing over the bass music world this year, "Drone Circle" has percussion somewhere between Clipse and Wiley—but the clipped vocal phrases and streaks of acid are unmistakably Distal.
Flip over the record and "106 Degrees" almost sounds like something on Hypercolour, with its zig-zagging bassline. Rathbun dresses up the background with more pretty synths and squelchy textures, but despite being a fine house tune, it lacks the pizzazz of the more experimental A-side. Consisting mostly of slap bass and some dislocated snares, the trippy ".25 Automatic" suffers from the same problem. It's like a canvas for Rathbun to spray with various percussion sounds and strange effects, an odd listen that never quite takes off.
Tracklist A1 Ridge City
A2 25 Automatic
B1 106 Degrees
B2 Drone Circle