[Concrete Cut]

Concrete Cut is a Polish label specializing in mutations of dubstep and bass music, and their stable of producers and releases so far has set them on equal footing with their British counterparts. It feels like ptr1’s Above The Structures EP crawls out from the wreckage of a fallen radio tower, injured and permanently violated by interference. It’s a self-consciously somber follow-up to Sentel’s pair of wacked-out rubber dubstep tracks. ptr1 sows his seed in the particularly fertile interbreeding fields between techno and dubstep; the techno aspect rears its head both sonically (the dusty, resonant atmospheres and the dissipating Moeller-like chords on “Falling”) and structurally. The slowed-down garage of “Above The Structures” makes for an oddly fitting cousin to ethereal breakbeat techno a la Shed. Its sleek, tightly-coiled step contrasts a type of techno that often sounds like it’s on the verge of falling apart.

Moving closer to dubstep, “Comatose” and “Cold” operate at higher tempos, the former grooving on thermal sub-bass and sensual vocal samples, while the latter’s cerebral and claustrophobic downward spiral sounds like an outtake from Scuba’s Triangulation (that’s a compliment). “Comatose” in particular is a feat of science, taking the dubby chord stabs of classic dubstep (think Digital Mystikz) and wrings them through a techno filter, isolating single notes and letting them ring out into the bubbling, steamy abyss. ptr1 even throws in a bit of post-rock for “Riverside Dub,” complementing the song’s moody motifs with actual guitars that sneakily blend into the song’s clouded gray. An extra remix from label bosses Shoju brings the guitars out and shoves the percussion in the background, providing an intriguingly post-punk leaning take on the EP’s stunning sound. While questions of authenticity are bound to arise at a time when “dubstep” is crawling out from under rocks in all corners of the world, Concrete Cut is making a case for Poland as a proper haven for the stuff.