Karl O’Connor seems to be enjoying getting his old bands back together. Last year he reunited with Surgeon for the long-awaited British Murder Boys debut and now he’s linked up with David Sumner (Function) for Sandwell District’s second full-length after a casual fifteen-year hiatus. I won’t say silence as, over the past year or so, they’ve treated us to a box set reissue of their masterful, scene-defining debut, and dropped an archival collection titled Where Next? late last year.
Sandwell District’s lineup has been fluid throughout its existence, and on End Beginnings, Rrose, Sarah Wreath, Rivet and Mønic add their not inconsequential chops to the platter. Previous stalwart Female (Peter Sutton) is a conspicuous absence. Tragically, between those two releases, O’Connor and Sumner’s lost their partner in crime Juan Mendez, AKA Silent Servant. His artwork and indelible production skills were a key element in the SD aesthetic and he’s honoured here in the naming of the album’s title, which takes its name from one of his own artworks, and its concluding title track.
And what a closer it is: a frisson of gliding automated doors and vertical shuttles for mega high rises. These sounds don’t appear out of nowhere. They arrive fresh from a woodland night with wind in its leaves and a hooting owl even making itself known. Snippets of radio chatter and Brad Fiedel-esque light beams cruise across fenced compounds as this rolls out like a more varnished version of the synth slides on ‘Immolare’ from Feed Forward.
Incidental noises occur throughout, suggesting incident as often as atmosphere. ‘Dreaming’ contains recordings of someone rattling about in a workshop whilst clanks, steam, and mishandled machinery provide the percussion on ‘Self-Initiate’. That track also features otherworldly heart rate monitors just as ‘Restless’ seems to subsist on chimes harvested from broken sonar. Each noise burst manipulated and FX-riddled so as to never sound the same twice.
The first thing that strikes you, and I mean physically, is the bruising wallop of the bass drum. ‘Will You Be Safe?’ shifts samba beats into heavier realms, with added threat and potency. The slower downbeat atmospherics of ‘Least Travelled’ recall Gaspar Noé’s DMT chains expanding and contracting in Enter The Void. This rides an even more psychedelic bent with slow struck strings reminiscent of Raime’s guitar work from Quarter Turns Over A Living Line being left out in the sun. It’s a calmer effort that becomes increasingly grimy and frazzled before vanishing in a smudge of static.
‘Hidden’ is techno for end times. It busts and breaks its way through countless gears, spreading sheets of halcyon ambience over the top before retreating like footsteps disappearing into the night. And the night is where this operates best. ‘Citrinitas Acid’, with its Drexciyan swipes, sounds like a nocturnal cruise through the Motor City.
Sandwell District still seem eager to assault the biggest speakers in the darkest rooms and they eloquently marry the primal physicality of techno’s propulsion with its forward-facing techniques. It might not have the initial groundbreaking impact of its predecessor, but End Beginnings pushes the techno continuum on, inch by inch, bleep by alien bleep, beat by rib-crushing beat.
