Into the Void

by Kingsley MarshallAfter a two-year hiatus interspersed with only the Sigma EP, Conrad Shafie finally touched back down at LTJ Bukem's mothership, with his first full-length ironically seeing release six months after he parted company with the label. Throughout his decade in drum'n'bass, Shafie's work has been a testament to the advanced ethos which drives the genre forward, with this batch of complicated deconstructions -- all fizzling studio work and slivers of meticulously put-together percussion -- as far as they could be from the chemically fuelled loops which dominated his earlier work. Though his fascination with tempo and meter has occasionally got the better of him, the proto-jazz on offer here is far from contrived, with this well-thought-out debut album a fine demonstration of the uniqueness of an extremely talented producer.