It seems a new log-term duo is being formed with Dirtbox label head Lee UHF and Argentinian deep bass artist, Noise Souls. The pair have released a number of collab tracks going back to 2023, but with their forthcoming single ‘Guilty Verdict’, due to drop tomorrow, 22 May, they have announced a further 20 tracks together coming out this year alone. That’s more than a cheeky one-off collab.
With this duo well and truly established, it can be said that ‘Guilty Verdict’ is a merging of both artists’ styles. Both Noise Souls and Lee UHF are very much into atmospherics and deep bass occupying space not only in the beats or main synths of a track but in the ambient framework of a track. Whilst Lee’s style focuses on snares and syncopation, Noise Souls loves a minimal beat and deep, rolling sine waves of bass.
These styles come together in ‘Guilty Verdict’, according to the artists, for a very specific reason. They wanted to pinpoint the vibe and make a soundtrack for a scene in the 1986 animated classic film, Transformers: the Movie. The scene, ‘The Trial of Kranix‘ is a short scene but it involves a lot of exposition and nuance and has impactful visuals, especially when it comes to the judges, a five-headed floating transformer which seems not to care about guilt or innocence. In this track, Lee UHF and Noise Souls imagine themselves as part of the Quintesson judgebot, lending their own sonic doom vibes to the proceedings.
On top of the ominous vibe created by spiraling snares, rolling bass and heavy sound design, ‘Guilty Verdict’ leaves space in the track for a number of sounds that more directly tie to the Transformers aesthetic. Both the intro and break are filled with buzzing, metallic machine sounds which give the atmospheric vibe more weight. It’s subtly neuro-tinged without being too neuro about it. Playing this track over its progenitor scene will have fans wishing drum and bass existed in 1986.