Super Mantis Part 1.
format: 12” vinyl 2 tracker
release: December 2007
genre: Scorn
distribution: Veto.co.uk
click to listen:
A Super Mantis
B Super Mantis (Blackmass Plastics remix)
As the season creeps toward cold, prolonged twilight, we unleash a sonic weapon crafted by the overlord of darkness himself, the legendary Mick Harris aka. Scorn.
* tried to keep the press sheet short, but it's hard with someone whose discogs run into 4 pages... full length blah is below, for the bored-at-work crew....
His long and influential history in the deep, dark and disturbed end of the musical spectrum includes involvement in seminal bands such as Godflesh, Napalm Death, spawning Grindcore and it’s myriad of derivative genres. Unrelentingly prolific, his attention to cinematic detail and mastery of low-end sonics has stamped his own unique sound onto any genre he’s taken on, whether it be the beatless nightmarish sub-ambientscapes of Lull, the battering industrial techno of Monrella, or the and the myriad of different projects in between, including work with Surgeon, Autechre, John Zorn, Bill Laswell… the list goes on.
Avoiding musical “scenes” and working in isolation, Mick formed Scorn (initially with Nick Bullen, then producing solo) to further mangle sounds to fit his own dystopian vision: dubbed-out, earth-shaking beats and bass which has been compared by some to “dubstep” though it predated the genre’s existence by several years.
"When I hear some people like Loefah, I hear Scorn or echoes of what we were doing in Techno Animal and that’s not to criticise him, it’s not criticism, it’s just coincidence. " - The Bug
We’re proud to announce the first in Combat’s Scorn series featuring tracks from the man himself, and remixes from the label’s crew who are huge fans.
Side A >> Super Mantis (original)
With an opening bass-riff that killed the soundsystem dead (!) at the Electrode session in Manchester, Super Mantis continues the Scorn tendency of reconstructing community-based music styles such as dub & hip-hop through a hellish, post-apocalyptic, isolationist perspective and headspace that’s all his own. Marching, colossal beats rise up and smash back down again amid 10-mile-deep basslines, subtly infused with a creeping feeling of slow, impending doom.
Side B >> Super Mantis (Blackmass Plastics remix)
First up on the remix treatment is Thorn Industries boss Blackmass Plastics.
Keeping Scorn’s thunderous kickdrums and suffocating bass intact, he applies the science of fierce, rolling breaks and old hardcore fury to the original elements and reworks the lumbering giant into a monster in full sprint, not unlike the chopped dancefloor bass’n’breakage of Rag and Bone Records or early Vex’d.
There's been a buzz among Scorn fans and some of the dubstep community alike for this release since it was announced in April this year. Whether Super Mantis falls within the fickle definition of “dubstep” or not should be irrelevant to genuine listeners, although it’s bass-heavy, militant, self-assured intensity mixes well with the output of artists like The Bug, Vex'd, Milanese, Distance, Tes la Rok, Komonazmuk & White Boi, Loefah, Threnody and Shackleton.
Keep your eyes peeled for other Scorn remixes coming from King Cannibal (Zilla), Threnody and Stormfield and more in the coming months.
In the meantime, also check out his new material forthcoming on Ad Noiseum, Jarring Effects and Ohm Resistance.
forthcoming Scorn LIVE dates:
http://myspace.com/mjhscorn
back to the komonazmuk/white boi/scanone sound!!!!!!
