Zomby: Where were you in 92?

Zomby
Where were you in 92?
Werk

Where were you in ’92? Erstwhile chip-tune loving Dubstep producer Zomby has just released a remarkable album based around this rhetorical question. Of course, the implication is that ‘you’ were mashed out of you brain at 4am in the middle of a field in England while a churning hardcore piano motif melded impossibly with the rising sun. There is no doubt that Zomby’s album is meant to play as a homage to such halcyon reminiscences. But, thankfully, the title is disengenous. There is a lot more at work here than mere revivalism.

For sure, Zomby has grabbed the glowstick of early ‘90s hardcore and run with it to a demented chorus of klaxons. Even if we disregard for a minute the explicitly druggy titles of songs such as ‘Pillz’ and ‘Euphoria’, the overall gleeful, sinister and deranged throb is so reminiscent of the work of Joey Beltram and 2 Bad Mice that listening to parts of the album is like getting stuck in an episode of Doctor Who where the Tardis lands somewhere off one of those fabled M50 raves in 1992.

Yet, there is such a ridiculous abundance of other riches going on here. There is also enough quality drum’n’bass to qualify the album as more than just a doffed cap to A Guy Called Gerard circa ’95, and, on various later tracks, Zomby’s Dubstep day job comes to the fore, anchoring us to the present and cockily reminding us of his prodigious talents. Here is a rare thing, an intelligent producer exuberantly paying homage to dance music’s recent past whilst hinting at a potential way forward. Oh, and did I say? It is seriously fucking fun.