RA.1011 Carrier by Resident Advisor

Dubwise atmospherics flood Guy Brewer's third RA Mix.

Hear the word "Dionysus" and you picture the Greek god of ecstasy: overflowing tables, delirious revelry, chaos. Not the austere soundworld of Guy Brewer, AKA Carrier. On the surface, the UK artist's latest alias feels almost Spartan. But look closer and the Dionysian link starts to show: it's about shedding fixed forms and identities, to allow something more true, more alive, to form.

RA.1011 marks Brewer's third entry in the RA Mix series, following editions as drum & bass outfit Commix (RA.269) and, later, the techno alias Shifted (RA.310). "I guess it's an effort to step away from purism," Brewer told <i>Resident Advisor</i> back in 2023. "Right now the thresholds between genres are where you find the most exciting music."

Carrier's phenomenal debut album, <i>Rhythm Immortal</i>, delivers on that promise. Low-end pressure cloaks like foreboding shadows, punctured only by eerie, otherworldly percussion comparable only to Photek or T++. Listen to the LP in full and it feels like walking through a scene in a true-crime drama: a fog-drenched city street in the deep of night, ambushed by gusts of wind, whispers and strange noises—and it sounds totally, utterly original.

Tracing a line through dub pressure, fractured percussion and narcotic ambience, Brewer explores that same world on RA.1011. As with the album, there's a primal pulse that threads through the recording. Walls of negative space seem to hover before dissolving inexplicably, their tension intact; drums move more like the weather than rhythm. - Bella Aquilina