Dark Pool is the new studio album from Black Rain, the project's first in 18 years. Produced
in New York City by Stuart Argabright, Black Rain's founder and figurehead, Dark Pool
is a work of hard-edged sonic fiction rooted in cyberpunk's quintessential neo-noir
cityscape/dataspace but projecting into a farther future of biotechnological advancement
and alienation. Stuart Argabright first landed in New York in 1978. By day, he worked as a
landscape gardener for the upscale likes of Rock Hudson and Bob Dylan, while at night
involving himself in all manner of subcultural activity -- the reverberations of which are still
being felt today. He co-founded seminal no wave minimalists Ike Yard (whose early 1980s
work has been cited as an influence by the likes of Kode9, Young Echo and Silent
Servant), collaborated with the late Rammellzee in futurist hip-hop outfit Death Comet
Crew (recently reactivated for an LP on Powell's Diagonal label) and as Dominatrix
scored a bona fide club hit with the downtown electro classic ''The Dominatrix Sleeps
Tonight'' (1984). Black Rain was revived in the wake of 2011's Now I'm Just a Number's
release and Argabright has toured extensively under the name and in 2013 released an EP
of live recordings, Protoplasm, on BEB. Three of the EP's four tracks appear here on Dark
Pool in radically revised and expanded form: the stuttering ribofunk of ''Endourban'' is now
anchored by ominous string pads faintly redolent of Argabright's label-mates Raime, while
''Data River'' revisits the accelerated beat-stream of Black Rain's 1996 album Nanarchy, and
the low-slung ''Protoplasm'' has evolved into a sprawling, syncopated techno epic -- the sound
of red dawn rising on an illegal replicant rave. A further seven new productions feature.
''Burst,'' its title perhaps a nod to Sogo Ishii's 1982 biker gang saga Burst City, harks back
to the scrap-metal-banging brutalism of Black Rain mk.1; ''Xibalba Road Metamorph,'' the
album's angry, anguished centerpiece, externalizes the sadness and self-loathing of Jeter's
oppressed post-human workforce. ''Night in New Chiang Saen'' reimagines dub as the viral
product of one of AgriGen's morally-suspect scientific initiatives in The Windup Girl, before
''Who Will Save the Tiger?'' calls upon spidery, Metalheadz-esque breakbeats and wailing
guitar drones to summon a 23rd century Ark. Vocals (on ''Profusion'' and ''Profusion II'') from
Zoe Zanias (Keluar), and a brief spoken intervention from Sean Young (who of course
played Rachel in Blade Runner) are simply the most audible manifestations of a dejected
feminine presence that haunts the entire album. For all its textual references, Dark Pool is a
visceral and straight-talking affair: its body-hammer rhythms and brooding sound design
require no explanation for their impact to be felt.
TRACKLISTING
01. Dark Pool
02. Profusion I
03. Watering Hole
04. Endourban
05. Burst
06. Xibalba Road Metamorph
07. Data River
08. Night in New Chiang Saen
09. Protoplasm
10. Profusion II: Fallofthehouseofagodofbiomechanics
11. Who Will Save the Tiger?