Raime - Hennail

Raime: Hennail

[Mine has no cover, just a blue photocopied insert in a black sleeve...and thus, sadly a reissue]

Supporting Hype Williams seemed, at the time, too obvious a gig for Raime when I first encountered them. I had been slotting Hype Williams into as many musical narratives as I could -dub, industrial, post-punk, grime, DIY -in an attempt to shake free of the hypnogogic tag that, frankly, didn't seem fit to last. Too dubby and ravey (in a slow motion come-down blur sort of way) to really fit in nearly with Industrial, they nonetheless shared the sonic-trickster personality of Cabaret Voltaire and to some extent groups like Bourbonese Qualk. Now I realise they're firmly part of the UK Bass set, not just because of the Hyperdub connection, but the whole attitude and reference points of two-step, East London garage/grime and the underground world of pirate radio.

Raime do not fit this tag. Raime are somehow firmly northern, their affiliation with Brummie techno bruiser Regis and the Blackest Ever Black label leads me to file them alongside SPK, Test Department and the gurning wickedness of Whitehouse. While not noisy or abrasive, there's something heavy and rusty, doom-laden yet impersonal, about these extraordinarily well made, if shy, constructions. Time is taken to paint a dense but never overpowering sonic image, one senses they've laboured over each sound's position and angle in a way that defies any boffin-like tag because, really, things unfold in such a gaseous, natural fashion that they sound positively arcane. A recommended 12 that demands repeated listens.