There have been a lot of murmurings lately about dubstepper extraordinaire Run DMT and what he’s got up his sleeve, especially with festival season now officially in full gear. Though largely on hiatus over the past couple of years, the Texas-based artist also known as John Robbins has recently started posting podcasts on the Kill Your Ego Soundcloud page, and publications have made references to a new release in the works.
“Voodou”, a single off Run DMT’s forthcoming album drops tomorrow, June 20 and for many dubstep fans it’s finally a confirmation of life, or, given the title, confirmation of “un-death”. The track features vocalist Jacq as well as newcomer MC Knat Turner in a prolonged intro which belies the truly massive first drop. If you ever wondered what voodoo sounded like as a bassline, Run DMT has more than answered that question with what can only be called a teeth-grinding, screwy chugger of a bassline. By “screwy”, it definitely sounds like a rusty screw being forced out of its threads, possibly by a mad shaman unleashing his or her zombies on the planet.
There’s an interesting break in the track after that bassline spends a few minutes confusing temporal bones where the veteran rapper Zeale adds his own verse and the beat is accompanied by a haunting, calliope-inspired piano melody. This second break then spins into the bassline again which, while not actually faster, has added synth progressions to make it sound like it’s as fast as the verse Zeale just dropped. It toggles back and forth between the “slower” and “faster” basslines before the track ends quite abruptly with a sort of video game-style “level up” sample. It’s wild stuff from Run DMT, and dubstep fans will quickly remember what they were missing from this weird and wonderful artist, as well as looking forward to the new album, which drops in August.
“Voodou” releases on Kill Your Ego June 20, but streaming and buy links are already up on Amazon and Juno download.