Then a duo, Sweden’s Skudge were invited to play as a temple of techno, Berlin’s Berghain, soon after releasing their debut single in 2009. It’s an accolade that speaks volumes. Now under the sole stewardship of Elias Landberg, Skudge’s fourth album spirals between locked-in, dubby grooves, dark, Drexciya-like-electro-funk and explosive dancefloor ordnance. You can almost taste the dry ice.
Kicking off with direct, subtle and in-tune basement dust, Skudge has managed to capture two weekend modes.
This is a soundtrack for either those apprehensive moments, where things start to fall into place and the crowd is rest assured that this will be a time to remember.
But Soundworks is also the soundtrack for those areas that turn party-goers into altered silhouettes, captured between strobe light flashes. Those types of situations, where the smoke and sweat meet in between the last dances.
From start to finish, the fourth album carries a sound that is coherent. What Soundworks means, is that all of the nine tracks on the LP are multi-dimensional, without losing traction. There are adrenal spikes but there are also drifters - most significant in the tracks 'Floating', 'Scape' and 'Likemind'.
All-in-all, what we have here is a return to form for Skudge, with a capital S.
TRACKLIST:
A1. Soundworks
A2. Downline
B1. Mode
B2. Cycle
C1. Floating
C2. Scape
D1. Likemind
D2. Offset
D3. Focus
