Cargo

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A welcome return from the rougher, scuzzier, rootsier representatives of electronic Vienna's musical melting pot. When Sofasurfer's first album Transit dropped in 1997, its principal attraction was the melding of live percussion to drum 'n' bass and dub patterns. Although the Sofasurfers have musically progressed with Cargo, shifting the relatively clinical feel of Transit into more roughly hewn shapes, the live drums and bass are still the principal attraction. And why not? When it works, it's very very good, as in the brilliant opener "Container" when its stuttering bass sample is all but obliterated by sharply recorded drum attack, "Latal In Tampere"'s dub-meets-post-rock, or "Long Bone"'s steppers rhythm. The voices of reggae vocalist Singing Bird and dub poet Victor Oshioke provide occasional mooring amidst the storm, but melody and harmony are largely alien concepts to this quartet of bass and drum fetishists. Their disused factory-home, renamed Kunstwerk, must be shaken to its core on a nightly basis by this onslaught. Another attraction of the Sofas is their collaboration, or rather cohabitation, with the Monoscope multimedia crew, providing them with awesome visuals both on the sleeves and on the road. The Sofas' love of dub is partly due to being able to "listen to what is between the music", but this is clearly music with space for visuals too. Like the Underworld/Tomato coalition, but more so. They're a thrilling live act - when the twin-drummer battery is in full effect, it's simply awe-inspiring - thunderous, relentless dub-heavy riddims locked down with the precision of drum 'n' bass, but with the visceral energy of live playing. It also becomes clear that they're the Godspeed You Black Emperor! of dub. They work simple but effective formulae, starting simply and building to shattering crescendi. Similarly they employ extremely smart visuals, projected over the band, bathing them in flickering abstraction, their cutout silhouettes nodding languorously to the grooves. In fact the visuals are as much a part of the live band as the sound, with a live video mixer on stage with the group, manipulating their beautiful self-made films - at once Len Lye-style 1930s abstract film and ultra-modern precision engineering CGI fetish - responding to the rhythms and textures, in effect a visual percussionist. If the record somewhat fails to capture this experience, then it wouldn't be the first time - it's impossible to emulate a reconfigured dub soundsystem with full audio-visual bombardment and spontaneous interaction in 2 slabs of vinyl. But it's still a fine fine record.