UK producer Richard Fearless launched his long-running electronic project Death In Vegas way back in 1994. Since then, Death In Vegas have cranked out six albums, fused a bunch of different genres, and collaborated with people like Liam Gallagher and Iggy Pop. Stereogum boss Scott Lapatine is a big fan of the group's 1999 album The Contino Sessions. There hasn't been a Death In Vegas album since 2016's Transmission, but now that's about to change.
In a couple of months, Death In Vegas will release Death Mask, their first new album in nine years. The album's press release lists no guests, and it promises a heavily analog electronic record. Richard Fearless has this to say:
I’ve been soaking in Ramleh’s Hole In The Heart, the machine funk of Terrence Dixon’s Population One, Jamal Moss’ psychedelic techno jams, the stunning minimalism of Mika Vanio’s Ø and Pan Sonic, the layered drones of LOOP, and drowning in the acid of TM404.
Most centrally through, I’ve been inhaling the deepest dub, from Mark Ernestus’ distillations to the principles of originators like King Tubby and Scientist. As someone who’s always been obsessed with the genre, I loved the idea of recording live takes as separate stems, then doing dub-inspired mixes of these stems through my console.
Some of the gear I use has a tendency to take on a life of its own -- for example, the Effectron delay, which Arthur Russell also used. It was feeding back on itself,and ended up sounding like a radio conversation -- literally voices from within the machine. On the Echoplex, the tape has never been changed. It’s eroded by the hands of time. When you record over the tape, things bleed in from what was there before, like people from the past.
Death Mask includes the single "While My Machines Gently Weep," a buzzing and clanking instrumental that came out a month ago. Today, Richard Fearless also shares the abstract self-directed video for the Death Mask title track, a seven-minute techno joint with some scratchy guitars in there. Below, check out the two singles and the Death Mask tracklist.
TRACKLIST:
01 "Chingola"
02 "Lovers"
03 "While My Machines Gently Weep"
04 "Hazel"
05 "Roseville"
06 "Róisín Dub(H)"
07 "Robin's Ghost"
08 "Your Love"
09 "Death Mask"
Death Mask is out 6/6 on Drone.
