TATLUM

From Russia with hate comes Tatlum, a producer who has already made himself a name through net releases and performing live on upper slots of industrial festivals in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Latvia. His HANDS debut “Mechanical Rite” is a coherent brew of hardcore and breakcore beats, dark atmospheres and spur-on-samples in a glossy, crisp production of ear-splitting loudness. Producing music since 2003, and having performed alongside the likes of Igorrr, Hecate, Ambassador 21, Synapscape or Wieloryb recently, it’s time for Moscow resident Tatlum to step into the spotlight as a recording artist, and “Mechanical Rite” is sure to popularize him in the industrial and breakcore scenes. Tatlum derives his moniker from a magic stone, told of in an ancient poem. The Gaelic term "tathlum" means a "concrete ball" which the ancient Irish warriors sometimes used to make out of the brains of dead enemies, hardened with lime. This martial-meets-mystic attitude can also be traced in the music of Tatlum. Even though the ten tracks of the album are quite beat-heavy (with quite some real moshpit floorfillers among them), it works almost like a soundtrack album, all chips off the same block, a crossbreed of syncopated breakcore, 180+bpm bass thumps, the odd wobble and chiptune-ish melody fragments, all shrouded in sample-heavy, dark (and sometimes almost D’Argento-style) atmospheres composed of buddhist chants and eerie overtones.