Dive Reflex Service
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‘Acrylic Snail’ is the fifth album from Dirty Dike. Following a three-year hiatus since his last solo outing ‘Sucking On Prawns In The Moonlight’ and after a ream of production work for the likes of Rag ’n’ Bone Man (‘Put That Soul On Me’), Ocean Wisdom (‘Chaos 93’) and Lee Scott (‘Butter Fly’) during that time, Dike is back with a brand new 14-track album; his most personal release to date and a body of work that shines a full-beam-floodlight on his formative years, but moreover, the dreamlike transition between then and now.Firmly anchored in a chapter of the UK underground before everything went to shit, situated a couple behind this current grizzly chapter, the songs bounce off the walls of abandoned industrial estates and whoosh by at breakneck speeds like trains through tunnels. The album embodies the freezing cold concrete pours, twilight toe slaps and irregularly shaped ballast banks of the network. In short, ‘Acrylic Snail’ pays homage to the things Dike saw in the very farthest reaches of night that made him who he is today.Featuring a roster of guests vocalists (Rag ’n’ Bone Man, Jam Baxter, Lee Scott, Dabbla, Leaf Dog, Eva Lazarus, J Man, Ronnie Bosh, Inja, Killa P, Foreign Beggars) and production from a team of music makers (including Dike himself) ‘Acrylic Snail’ is an AAA invitation to Dirty Dike’s playground and further cements his hard-earned status as one of UKHH's greatest torchbearers.

EM Records: ...From Scratch was an innovative and highly influential New Zealand-based sound-performance group, making extensive use of found and repurposed objects as well as custom-made instruments in their intricately interlocking percussion music. One of their signature instruments consisted of carefully tuned PVC pipes, played with foam rubber mallets; arrays of these feature prominently, along with drums and tuned percussion, in Gung Ho 1,2,3D, an extended composition which sumptuously investigates polyrhythmic relationships indicated by the number sequences which title each section of the piece. Featured here is the original 1982 recording of the "8, 9, 10" and "9, 10, 11" sections of the piece, previously issued in 1988 by Flying Nun.Rounding out this 2LP and CD release are three 2016 translations of the piece, based on the original score. Japanese group goat provides a driving rhythmic and mathematical analogue, which From Scratch's Phil Dadson, who provides liner notes, describes as "a fast moving shadow, familiar in outline but from another world". German producer Don't DJ imbibes the tribal spirit of Gung Ho and its sense of ritual to deliver a hypnotic immersion, and Utena Kobayashi Group adds wordless voice-worlds and distorted blasts to the ever-onward mix, before a final tropical down-shift.