Ninja Tune have announced the upcoming release of Concrete Desert, the new collaboration between Kevin Martin (The Bug) and Dylan Carlson (Earth). The album will be out in digital format on March 24th, with the physical release scheduled for May 5th.
Carlson, the founding member of Sub Pop-signed Earth, is a veteran of the ambient metal scene, and first collaborated with Martin on The Bug’s 2014 Angels & Devils LP. The two share a fascination with “heaviness… with [searching] for… and [breaking] the boundaries between beautiful and ugly, minimal and maximal, light and dark.”
Concrete Desert takes its inspiration from JG Ballard’s urban dystopias and the album promises to have a truly literary character, with Martin commenting that he can “hear the writing of Cormac McCarthy” in Carlson’s music.
The first track off the album, “Snakes vs Rats”, is an incredibly promising introduction: a dark, driving and dynamic track that deals in heavy contrasts, as volleys of noise cut into the insistent, doom-filled central guitar riff.
Stay tuned for more coverage of Concrete Desert – one of the year’s most exciting early releases – right here on The Playground.
