download/CD, Plastic Sound Supply, 2009
www.cacheflowe.com
Hailing from Colorado, via the Plastic Sound Supply label, CacheFlow makes hip-hop-tinged dubstep, avoiding the dirtier fringes of that genre in favour of more rounded analogue-style sounds and futuristic IDM glitch-beats.
This digital EP, available on CD format as well, is a showcase for “FloweBot”, a collaboration with rapper Brer Rabbit of the Flobots. Four mixes are provided. Alongside the original and an instrumental dub, Starkey replaces the wobbly minimalism of the original mix with a more trebly hip-hop production style, and Machinedrum strips out all but the vocals and backs them with a downbeat loop-based arrangement.
Also included are three additional tracks. “Oh! Dub” explores a more traditional dub sound, with a double-speed rhythm that starts all garagey and ends up almost in ska territory. “Crunch Dub” is a little darker, retaining the glossy synth sounds, and “Imperial Bombin” features pitched up vocal samples croaking about warfare over a lazy, almost horizontal backbeat.
Given a 6/10 mainly for the forward-looking production, but it’s a all little too happy and major-key to really chime with me, despite plenty of opportunities to go much, much ruder.
[6/10]
— Andrew Clegg