Rave Review: Ruby My Dear - Iterations

Analogical Force continues to position itself as a torchbearer for IDM bridging the mid-’90s pioneers with the genre’s restless present. Ruby My Dear’s second release on the label in as many years follows that same arc of reverence and reinvention.

Where Smooth Working delivered on the core pleasures of the style—crisp, intricate breaks threaded through wistful synth work and a strong vein of drum funk—Iterations pushes further. This is a record intent on rupture, bending and reconfiguring Ruby My Dear’s sound into something more volatile. This is Pandora’s breakbeat box broken open.

Ruby My Dear taps into a particularly brutal hybrid of glitch and dubstep here. “Messh” lurches forward under tolling, ominous bells, while “Glitch Jockey” stalks like a malfunctioning automaton in some dim, dystopian back alley.

All the chaos is unleashed on “Google-ize,” which, in its breakcore bliss, manages to perfectly satirize the overstimulating experience of surfing the web. “No Smoke” closes the EP with heavily reverbed vocals that would be sentimental if they weren’t so haunting. Along with a writhing beat, it wraps the listener in a tight embrace before sinking in its teeth.

The absolute centerpiece of the album, though, is the opening title track, “Iterations.” It starts slow, with a roiling bass and a dramatic background chorus, but then it begins churning, pulverizing everything in its path and rolling it up into its growing mass. The bigger it gets, the more punishing its bass becomes, causing nothing less than the whole earth around it to tremble. Ruby My Dear has unleashed a beast.

(The Lunatic is an Austin, Texas–based raver spreading the good word through his reviews and blog—and by selling the weirdest fucking electronic vinyl around.)