Initially meeting in Montreal at the inaugural Micro Mutek Festival, Kitchener producer Scott Montieth (a.k.a. Deadbeat) and Dominican wordsmith Paul St. Hilaire (formerly Tikiman) immediately bonded over their shared love of modern dub music. After a decade of sporadic performances, Deadbeat & St. Hilaire have released their first full-length collaboration, The Infinity Dub Sessions.
Working off of form-fitting, minimalistic templates, much of this eight-track album flows at a rather unsteady and nomadic pace. Deadbeat's pitch-perfect raggas are steeped in passive electronics, as crackling transmissions and looping hi-hat swishes decorate the low-end. But save for a few standout tracks like the decayed trance of "Little Darling" and the sauntering, rhythmic "Under Cover," St. Hilaire doesn't sound so much lost as he does uninspired on The Infinity Dub Sessions, leaving the listener with a sometimes wildly vibrant, sometimes paint-by-numbers interpretation of a rather granite, unmovable genre.
(BLKRTZ)Working off of form-fitting, minimalistic templates, much of this eight-track album flows at a rather unsteady and nomadic pace. Deadbeat's pitch-perfect raggas are steeped in passive electronics, as crackling transmissions and looping hi-hat swishes decorate the low-end. But save for a few standout tracks like the decayed trance of "Little Darling" and the sauntering, rhythmic "Under Cover," St. Hilaire doesn't sound so much lost as he does uninspired on The Infinity Dub Sessions, leaving the listener with a sometimes wildly vibrant, sometimes paint-by-numbers interpretation of a rather granite, unmovable genre.
