Slam - Crowded Room EP

Written by Manu Ekanayake

Techno -

Slam hit it hard with another release for Adam Beyer’s Drumcode label. Heavier than a dry slap from Mike Tyson…

Slam’s Orde Meikle recently told us that the duo’s output for Drumcode, their friend and fellow techno hot-shot Adam Beyer’s label, was ‘just club 12’s really, simple’. And he couldn’t have put it better when describing the first track on this 2-part EP, Crowded Room. It goes straight into head-nodding, thumping territory that hammers home with just the kind of stark precision you’d expect from a Slam production. This is definitely the tougher side of what Slam do – so be warned, it’s not for the faint-hearted.

Then Night Train keeps going at the same pace, but while it’s an equally percussive piece it’s also one with a lot more peaks and troughs. Dark and forbidding but also strangely alluring, this one is all atmospheric tension and heavy mechanical drive.