- Modern drum & bass with hints of techno.
- There's a lot about Shiken Hanzo, AKA Ryan Fearon, that seems retro, but he's actually one of the artists helping push drum & bass forward. He participates in one of the style's established traditions: an obsession with Samurai culture, which also touches early Photek and the label Samurai Music, which featured Japanese characters and artwork on its early records. But White Gorilla Cult aligns with Samurai's latter-day output, a rumbling, techno-influenced brand of drum & bass pioneered by artists like ASC and Ancestral Voices.
This style moves like techno at halftime drum & bass speed—hulking and linear like the treads of a tank. The title track is the most illustrative, with a martial beat and growling techstep basslines. The more cinematic "Strategy Of Two Heavens" adds a swirling strings melody, while the B-side is more anxious. "Ujimasa" feels apocalyptic, and is spiced up with rude basslines.
The most impressive track, "Shinto Muso-Ryu," is also the subtlest. Named for a style of martial arts involving a short stick, half its appeal comes from silence. Quaking drums are interrupted by pockets of low-end and vocal gasps, quiet passages that could prove explosive in the hands of the right DJ. With records like this, Shiken Hanzo—if you can look past the questionable cultural appropriation—is earning himself a spot alongside drum & bass's most inventive minds.
TracklistA1 White Gorilla Cult
A2 Strategy Of Two Heavens
B1 Ujimasa
B2 Shinto Muso-Ryu