Alaskan producer Austin Williams, formerly of the Ascent project, returns with his sophomore EP for Nu Partial, released digitally on Renraku—a label that has quietly become one of bass music’s most reliably strange outposts. Premiered in full by XLR8R ahead of its release, RRRRECEPTION is a seven-track melting pot in which garage and 2-step, glitch, noise, downtempo and drum & bass all jostle for space, frequently within the same track.
Opening cut Powerade Beat announces the record’s agenda immediately: a lopsided 2-step shuffle whose snares land at odd angles over a thick, wobbling sub bass. Glue folds a half-time stomp into a tangle of granular texture, whilst Miami P.D. Bussdown—sirens, pitched percussion and clipped noise crammed into under three minutes—is the EP’s most unhinged moment. Chive Check slows the pulse to a head-nodding crawl, dubby delays echoing across a sparse, unhurried soundscape. The title track RRRRECEPTION is the centrepiece, its stuttering, IDM-adjacent rhythms and pitch-shifted vocal fragments sounding like a signal fighting to come through static, while Bushidx Blade turns to drum & bass with rolling breaks and a snarling bassline. Closer Pugassi Flex lets the air back in with a dubbed-out, half-time groove.
There’s a human story underneath all the noise. Williams made the record between Mississippi and Anchorage, working on the tracks whilst supporting his mother through recovery from surgery—context that could easily have weighed the whole thing down. Instead it seems to loosen it: for every abrasive moment there’s a corresponding warmth, and the record’s hiss and crackle feel like texture rather than error.
It’s a knotty, demanding listen, and not every idea lands with equal force—Miami P.D. Bussdown in particular feels over before it’s begun. But as a statement of intent, RRRRECEPTION is hugely impressive: the drums are crisp and detailed, the sub bass is properly physical, and the reverb-heavy palette gives even the harshest moments a human scale. A second EP that cements Williams as one of the most interesting producers in experimental bass right now.
