Portland-based label Blankstairs is building up something big with DJ Rafael‘s deconstructed, jackhammer take on U.S. Hard‘s automaton anthem, “Work”.
Tense and trance-inducing, one gets the hard-hat treatment with this shrapnel-sharp take on the original. Already unashamed in its industrial-influenced leanings, it’s a raucous, Detroit-tinged track that with the proper sound system is bound to rattle you to your bones. Hypnotic and obviously rooted in the mechanical repetition, at no point does it get mindless. A high compliment for any techno-based track. Syncopated, pulsing and postulating, it leaves us aching for more, which is something you don’t usually want from clattering drum patterns and skull-drilling bass.