It sounds somehow both diminutive and pretentious to call an artist like Subp Yao a ‘producer’s producer’, but in many ways it’s very true. With an innovative and continuously evolving production style, the Netherlands-based experimental artist has been integral in helping form the current deep bass movement whilst being stylistically lauded and studied by some fo the biggest and most respected names in several genres. If you’ve heard an inexplicably jaw dropping drop or snare arrangement from the likes of Noisia or Zomboy in the last decade, it’s likely to be inspired at least in part by a Subp Yao offering. Now as part of a recent deep bass offensive, the next step in the experimental deep bass foundations has been planted in the form of the Soil LP, out today on SATURATE! Records.
The ten-track Soil comes on the heels of the stylistically quite different That EP on Unchained Recordings, showing Subp Yao’s range and hinting that he’s sitting on a gallery of more new music. One can only hope. In the meantime, Subp Yao’s characteristic rumbling bass and experimental arrangements are out in full force in Soil, whose musical theme is made obvious in track names like ‘Root,’ ‘Underground’ and ‘Red Ground’. Subp Yao channels earth frequencies to find his own foundations, and luckily he’s taking fans along on his journey inward.
Buried in the dirt, the conscience has room to germinate. Continuing to take root in the underground, Subp Yao gets them hands engulfed in the mud. Finally harvesting fruit of labour planted beyond grassroots level, Soil demonstrates Subp Yao’s cultivation of sound expanding further than the sands of time. Soil is deeply entrenched in the underground, rattling sub frequencies to disturb the streets.
As the album moves to its end, this flowering of new sounds is made evident with ‘Rattle’, announcing the artist’s aim to shake things up in bass music once again after going through this inner quest to extract these gems out of the Soil. Nothing unearths precious metals like an earthquake, after all, and the snares on ‘Rattle’ take on the frantic scribbling of a seismic tracker as the bass and sub bass grind and roll against each other. As the penultimate track, one can imagine ‘Rattle’ gives birth to the contemplative and enlightened closing track, ‘Haunted’. By the sounds of it, this album was quite a journey for Subp Yao, and his fans will now reap the fruits of Soil.
Soil just dropped today, 3 June and can be streamed or purchased on most major platforms including Spotify, Beatport and Bandcamp.