Denver’s own Colin Ward will not stop pumping the raw jams out of his brainpod until he and you and I are all dead. After a winning streak of overloaded electronic mayhem and intricate polyrhythmic beatdowns purveyed from projects like Alphabets and Tokyo Drift, Ward returns to the danger zone with new material under the Killd By moniker. The stereo spread this time around features a little more open space for his beats to intersect over dance-friendly grids, resulting in some of his most legible compositions to date. But legible ≠ simple. As ever, Ward’s tracks unfold in unpredictable directions, betraying few signs of stasis or verse/chorus recursion. His upper register synth leads shine at the center of his mixes, sliding through layers of delay and filtering processes into corrupted digital moans in harmony with tuned 808 toms and squelchy acid basslines. His experience as a percussionist continues to abet his baroque beat arrangements, which cycle through déjà vu patterns that evoke strains of electronic production from reggaeton to big tent EDM to deep house to cumbia.
Enter the culinary otherworld on display in the video for “No Energy Vamp” and try not to step on any of the broken glass. Like the indelible visuals for previous Alphabets banger “Raptor Jazz,” Ward and his collaborators capture a clique of ragers in action, guzzling wine and generally causing chaos. Instead of paying tribute to Carlo Rossi on the rooftop of Rhinoceropolis, these patrons chill in the analogue of a fancy restaurant, relishing their Dayquil-spiked entrees in ignorant bliss under the watchful eyes of a character billed as “E-Cig Dreadlocks Chef #2.” Yeah, we’ve reached the zone. Some really heavy shit goes down before the conclusion, but I don’t wanna spoil it for you.
• Killd By: https://soundcloud.com/killdby
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