Untitled (Dub) // Happa

Happa is the project of Samir Alikhanizadeh, although you may also know him as Zadeh. “Happa started out as a side project but it has now become my main production priority” he writes, but with Happa, “specialising on the darker side of bass and Techno” and he isn’t kidding – his latest untitled dub is his tightest and darkest to date.

‘Untitled’ hacks away at your ears in the nicest way possible. It seems that Techno these days can’t stop getting increasingly stripped down, and melody seems a thing of the past, leaving the emotive function down to the cold metal emptiness of it. The drums sound like shards of glass being ground down by a mortar and pestle and there’s wonderful interplay of the carefully crafted bass frequencies that swell and retain, giving it a distinctly evil sound, (as if it wasn’t dark enough already.)

The emerging of this crunchy glacial sound I suppose originates from Blawan, who, since his meteoric rise to success in 2011, has left ample evidence of his influence in the wake – for instance see the likes of Tessela or Paleman. It seems that this track is perhaps more ‘inward’ in approaching an already existing standard rather than ‘outwardly’ innovative, but I don’t mind because it’s executed so perfectly, and the production is so spot-on.

With forthcoming releases on Wigflex and Church, Happa’s new stuff isn’t going unnoticed. We don’t need to tell you that he’s one to watch. Oh yeah and it’s also worth mentioning that he’s fourteen years old…

• Published
• Apr 30, 2012

• Credits
• Words by Georgie_McVicar