Bristol, UK based DJ/Producer Pinch has dropped the latest track PARTY, featuring South London based Killa P, taken off his forthcoming album REALITY TUNNELS, via his own label Tectonic

This Summer the influential Bristol figurehead Rob Ellis AKA Pinch will release his first solo album in 13 years, via his own label, Tectonic. It takes both its title and concept from the idea of a ‘reality tunnel’, which was originally espoused by American author, Futurist and ‘Agnostic Mystic’ Robert Anton Wilson.

Pinch forged a reputation as one of the original dubstep pioneers, but this new offering shows just how far he’s travelled since that big bang of creativity in the mid-2000s. So while floor-friendly bass pressure remains prominent, here it acts as a springboard for outré experiments in techno, grime, dub, jungle, dubstep and other, more surprising styles. Across 10 individualistic tracks, the album somehow coheres despite its roaming breadth and large-scale ambition – all of which make for an exciting, epic adventure.

“I first made the track ‘Back to Beyond’ following a complicated experience with infinity. I decided it was going to be the cornerstone of my second solo LP and set about making more music with that purpose in mind. There were to be no boundaries placed on the music; it would just be for me.

‘Reality Tunnels’ is a concept that was originally introduced by Robert Anton Wilson in his 1983 book ‘Prometheus Rising’. In essence, the concept of a reality tunnel relates to an idea on how we create our own perspective, the subjective filter that we each apply to the world around us; the things we perceive and what our consciousness deems worthy of attention, IE what we see and hear is entirely relative to what we do not.

Our beliefs, values, behaviours and so on, which we create and can therefore reshape, are the product of our individual reality tunnels. Every track on the album serves as its own reality tunnel and each tells a different part of my musical story”, explains Ellis.

Each of these separate soundworlds travelled to by Pinch are explored and expressed with a distinct creative attitude and unified by an ‘anything goes’ free approach, influenced by his time in the studio with envelope-pushing godfather Adrian Sherwood.

At points angular and uncompromising with levels in the red, frequencies pushed out and EQ curves stretched into strange new shapes, Pinch mixes both low and hi-fi on this boldly distinct sonic statement. It sees him flexing years of production skills, but unconventionally so, knowing well that safe predictability and rounded polish don’t get the most interesting results.

Dark Trip Hop Bristolian segues into blistering jungle on album opener ‘Entangled Particles’, before planet-hopping onto the spiky insidious grime step of ‘All Man Got’, featuring the rugged rasp of OG warhorse Trim.

Beginning a triptych of future techno, ‘Accelerated Culture’ offers the album’s most relatively straightforward moment, albeit one of scorching, anthemic dancefloor heat. Delving deeper into the vortex is the synapse sparking wobbler ‘Returnity’, before ‘Finding Space’ reaches to the cosmos’ far-flung, glowing outlands.

Back to an urban reality is ‘Party’, where a subtly menacing sense of dread is ignited by Killa P’s incremental flow, which ramps-up and pairs-back the intensity in unexpected ways. Still moving freely between different realities, ‘Back To Beyond’ is beautiful gloaming ambience, executed with equal fine-tuned grace as the genre’s masters.

Jamaican vocalist Inezi lends sweet tones to the slow-burning, roots-meets-modern-bass spiritual ‘Change Is A Must’, and on ‘Non-Terrestrial Forms’ an atmospheric, misty steppers intro segues stealthily into fiercely dystopian, amen-fuelled jungle Tekno; marking one of several surprise attacks on the album, where a subtle-slight-of hand shoots the intensity level dynamically up.

Closing as it begins, the album is bookended by a piece that recalls the dark, intricate soundscapes of Massive Attack’s ‘Mezzanine’ and Tricky’s ‘Maxinquaye’, found here in ‘The Last One’s scorched, smoky rocker.

‘Reality Tunnels’ follows 2007’s solo debut full-length ‘Underwater Dancehall’, a collaborative LP with Shackleton and two with Adrian Sherwood, an EP with Photek plus many more solo 12”s.

Following 2018 marking Tectonic’s special 100th release, Riko Dan’s ‘Hard Food’ EP featuring Pinch, Mumdance, Walton and Joker, and even more significant benchmark happens this year,  the label’s 15thanniversary. Sadly, like so many musical endeavours, COVID 19 has hit hard, meaning planned shows in Berlin, London, Bristol and Brighton with fellow luminaries Shed, Storm, Josey Rebelle, Kode 9, Kahn, Adrian Sherwood, Fauzia, LCY and Walton have all been cancelled.

But despite difficulties, this career-best new long-player stands prominently present as a triumphant commemorative artefact. It’s a testament to Ellis’ abundant ideas guided by an inspiring ‘zero fucks’ attitude to rules and conventions, which resulted in a work brimming with his personality, and the idiosyncrasies that make it shine.

Pinch ft. Killa P – Party via iTunes/Spotify

Pinch – Reality Tunnels Pre-Order HERE
(26th June)

Tracklist:
1. ‘Entangled Particles’ feat. Emika
2. ‘All Man Got’ feat. Trim
3. ‘Accelerated Culture’
4. ‘Returnity’
5. ‘Finding Space’
6. ‘Party’ feat. Killa P
7. ‘Back to Beyond’
8. ‘Change Is A Must’ feat. Inezi
9. ‘Non-Terrestrial Forms’
10. ‘The Last One’ feat. Nive Nielson & The Deer Children

https://tectonicrecordings.com
www.facebook.com/PinchTectonic
https://twitter.com/TectonicPinch
https://soundcloud.com/dj-pinch
https://instagram.com/pinch_tectonic
https://www.killap.com
https://twitter.com/killapmc
https://instagram.com/killap_official