Suburban Knight – By Night EP

The Warning is the track here. So gorgeously dark, so desperate and powerful at the same time. Longing and fulfillment, chiaroscuro, austere and ionate......you catch my drift. I sort of lost my mind when I first heard this track and it's still standing tall after all these years. Echolocation, not really, but Nightvision is cool.

Keeping with his nocturbulous motif, Suburban Knight transforms the world of stealth bombers, cloaking devices and winged mammals into another adrenaline rush of an EP. Like Drexciya, The Knight gives his concepts deep musical meaning on wax, rather than using them as cute track titles, and Echo Location is every bit as sleek and mysterious as the reference material.

A piercing sonar squelch greets listeners as the title track gets underway, perhaps an audible beacon for the to help us through the crowds at underlit warehouse parties. This strange sound is ed by a hyperactive R8 clap loop (few artists use this box to such great effect) and other twittering percussion. "The Warning" offers more of the same, combined with frayed piano chords playing a malevolent melody.

The EP closes with "Nightvision," not as powerful as the other two tracks, but equal in its sinister effect: a relaxed electro beat, frantic melody and percolating bassline. Judging from the groove (no pun intended) James Pennington was in at the time he recorded this release, I'd imagine he probably had an album full of material waiting. Until UR gets around to releasing such a gem, we'll have to be content that Suburban Knight hasn't lost a step with his latest -- predatory techno at its finest.