[Hate]

Finally, some light relief amid the furrowed-brow seriousness that’s all too prevalent in electronic music. The fifth release on the Modern Love-affiliated, rave/hardcore-inspired Hate label sees yet another unknown artist inject some humour into their work. Sampling Simon & Garfunkel singing the line “Hello darkness my old friend” from “The Sound of Silence,” she/he then loops the word “darkness” and splices it up with a standard amen break, a cartoonish hoover bass and some bleak chords. Like the scene and the music it so clearly apes, it’s daft and utterly disposable, yet infinitely more entertaining than much of what passes for cerebral techno or house in 2009.

The same approach is audible on the flipside, this time with a bleep techno bass line as the centre point, underpinning sped-up hip-hop breaks and darkcore rave riffs — if the producer had included rave whistles or cowbells, the nostalgia trip back to 1991 would have been complete. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of DJs will actually play this release, but for those of a certain age who no longer get out as much as they used to, may we suggest that “Hate 5” comes with a scratch’n’sniff cover to let them relive the old days?