Following a pair of short, sketch-like tracks (“Dusk” and “Moonshot”) more in keeping with the classic ambient dub of the early 1990s, Hallucinator set out for unknown territory in the album’s closing sequence. “Wipeout I,” “Recall (Wipeout II),” and “Rocket,” all exclusive to the album, strip away the drums to plunge into a maelstrom of hissing noise, grinding feedback, and, in the case of “Rocket,” roiling, overdriven synth riffs. Taken together, the three tracks suggest an unexpected link to the industrial music of the 1970s and ’80s, along with the electronic proto-punk of Suicide. “Hallucinator,” a track from their debut EP, concludes the album with an even more explicitly industrial experiment—10 minutes of churning, grayscale loops and unsettling bursts of noise.
As much as Hallucinator chose to let the music speak for itself, they did offer one crucial clue to more worldly concerns: In the press release for their debut EP, they dedicated the music to the memory of Stephen Lawrence, a Black Londoner, just 18 years old, who had been attacked and murdered by a group of knife-toting white assailants in 1993. Such a dedication was unusual for Chain Reaction, whose world-building typically remained purely imagistic, like the nautical fixations of Porter Ricks or the airy abstractions of Vainqueur. However subtle, Hallucinator’s emphasis on social justice is a reminder that even the most fantastical sounds are a part of the real world, and the lived experience of the people in it.
As students of dub, Hallucinator knew that reggae was an island music shaped by centuries of trade and slavery; the title Landlocked may have been a nod to the UK’s own insular culture and post-colonial legacy. Though their music was superficially connected to the utopian currents of rave culture and the pan-European idealism of the late 1990s, the back half of the trio’s album captures a seething unease. Hallucinator were never as well known as many of their Chain Reaction peers, but this new reissue of their sole album is proof that their name deserves a place in dub techno’s pantheon—not just as genre pioneers, but also as artists who channeled history’s hidden currents into music that remains powerfully confrontational, three decades later.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
