World On Fire EP

Thirty years into its reign as one of techno’s most trusted institutions, Glasgow’s Soma Records remains a reliable scout for dark, forward-thinking talent, and its latest signing is no exception. Russian duo Namesis and Corvad follow last year’s debut with the World On Fire EP, a three-track collection of brooding EBM-techno hybrids that trade in the same industrial dystopia as the title suggests—cold, mechanical and unapologetically grim.

The EP opens with Dancing Cooler Drugs, a title that drips with the same ironic detachment as its sound. A rigid four-to-the-floor kick sits beneath clanging, metallic percussion and a distorted bassline that chews through the mix, whilst processed vocal fragments surface like distress calls, drenched in reverb and cut off before they can resolve. It’s muscular and unyielding, the kind of track that belongs in a concrete bunker rather than a sunlit terrace. Title track World On Fire follows a similar template but stretches it out over five minutes, its pads smeared wide across the stereo field as siren-like tones rise and fall above the relentless drive. There’s no respite, no daylight—just the slow, deliberate tightening of a vice.

The centrepiece, though, is the remix. German producer Vril takes Dancing Cooler Drugs and dismantles it with characteristic restraint, stripping the clangour back to a skeletal, hypnotic pulse and letting the vocal fragments float through vast, dubby space. Where the original throttles, the remix breathes, its motorik groove and softly-shifting pads lending the EP’s bleakness an unexpected grace. It’s the kind of remix that reframes the source material entirely, and it’s the record’s standout moment by some distance.

With the World On Fire EP, Namesis & Corvad prove they belong on a label with three decades of techno authority behind it. It doesn’t reinvent EBM or techno—it simply welds them together with real conviction and a keen ear for texture, and the Vril remix shows they’re willing to let others find the light in their shadows. Brooding, unrelenting and built for dark rooms, this is a fine second outing from a duo worth watching.