- Hessle Audio's 50th release reflects on the label's techno-dubstep roots while barrelling bass-first into the future.
- Hessle Audio is officially old enough to buy a drink in the UK. With 2025 releases like Josi Devil's roaring display of hollowed-out dubstep, and Impérieux's sleek, dark garage, the influential label's emergence into adulthood has involved plenty of musing on the music of its formative years. Enter Amsterdam-based Jasmín, a DJ who made her first steps into production with a coiling, aquatic techno tune for Patterns of Perceptions' 2022 compilation, Future Patterns 01. On her first full-fledged record, and Hessle Audio's 50th release, Bite The Hand That Feeds You, the Dutch-Argentinian artist continues the label's darksided streak. The record is a solid collection of searing techno that snakes between Latin American rhythms, industrial, and the deep blare of dubstep.
On the topic of dubstep, you'll recognise the "Bite The Hand" bassline's encompassing BEEOOOOOW, a hallmark of similarly obliterating heaters like Joy Orbison's "Flight Fm" and Verraco's "Escándaloo." The track's unwieldy bent-note bassline, beefed up with midrange ferocity, sounds like it was put under a hydraulic press to maximise low-end rumble between straight-laced techno kicks. If this all sounds incredibly heavy, it is—but the bright peal of distant hammers and pattering hand drums tames the intensity, gliding through the track's heat with gymnastic grace.
Jasmín's style finds a fitting match in Lisbon-based poet Older Brother, who features on the remaining tracks. With a deadpan similar to Tricky's or Florence Sinclair's, Older Brother conveys on "Overdriven" how a life of glamour can turn people into empty, fame-hungry animals. From the sound of his dead-eyed mumble, he's speaking from experience: "I'd take you for a ride, G, but I bite the hand that I feed, and there's blood all over your sheets." Foreboding synths, rising before suffocating lyrics in billowing mist, unsettle the already-eerie tone. But the clanging drums don't fully emulsify with the lyrics, resulting in a final product that recalls a lukewarm dinner left out to congeal.
"The Ride," an industrial techno take on "Overdriven," makes better use of spoken-word. When Older Brother slows his roll, his words melt across the ear in a good way. Finally, over a schoolyard rhythm, the production and vocals start to gel. The nuanced instrumental releases quick gasps, muffled barks and wafting synth pads that float like smoke from a gutter. These sounds closely stalk his verses, spreading a sense of fear over slow chords. Working this way, Jasmín reveals her knack for ushering seemingly incongruous rhythms into harmonious grey zones. She knows how to set haunting moods that linger and prod at the mind long after the lights go up—much like Hessle's mystifying catalogue over the last 18 years.
Tracklist01. Bite The Hand
02. Overdriven feat. Older Brother
03. The Ride feat. Older Brother