Death In Vegas, the alias of DJ and producer Richard Fearless, has a new album on the way, titled Death Mask.
Spanning nine tracks, it’s Fearless’ first album as Death In Vegas since 2016’s Concrete, and is said to be influenced by Fearless’ own life, loved ones and experiences of grief.
In a statement about the sonic influences on the record, Fearless said: “I’ve been soaking in Ramleh’s Hole In The Heart, the machine funk of Terrence Dixon’s Population One, Jamal Moss’ psychedelic techno jams, the stunning minimalism of Mika Vanio’s Ø and Panasonic, the layered drones of LOOP, and drowning in the acid of TM 404.
“Most centrally through, I’ve been inhaling the deepest dub, from Mark Ernestus’ distillations, to the principles of originators like King Tubby and Scientist. As someone who’s always been obsessed with the genre, I loved the idea of recording live takes as separate stems, then doing dub-inspired mixes of these stems through my console.
“Some of the gear I use has a tendency to take on a life of its own, for example the Effectron delay which Arthur Russell also used. It was feeding back on itself, and ended up sounding like a radio conversation – literally voices from within the machine. On the Echoplex, the tape has never been changed. It’s eroded by the hands of time. When you record over the tape, things bleed in from what was there before, like people from the past.”
Watch a video for the album’s title track below.
Drone will release Death Mask on June 6, 2025.
