Nectax – A State Of Play

Newcastle producer Nectax has been turning heads with his fresh perspective on jungle/drum & bass. His debut album, though, expands that sound palette. While hovering around 160 BPM, ‘Soundboy Gambit’ swaps between filtered breaks and the kicks, claps and 808 booms of footwork. ‘Swarm Behaviour’, with its intricate rhythms and bass sweeps, seems to slip between temporal zones, while the 4/4 ‘Side Quest’ professes a love for jungle tekno. ‘Always You’ manages to flip from a 2-step garage skip into Amen jungle in the blink of an eye, and the oceanic ‘Atlantic Drift’ is all fathoms-deep pads, warm sub and crisp Bukem-esque drums. Then there’s the spine-tingling synth melody and tumbling breaks of the closer, ‘Passing Rain’. Nectax’s debut LP declares “don’t pigeonhole me” in fine style.