As The Bug, Kevin Martin has produced some of his most widely loved material. But there is a singular power to Martin’s dark, booming cities of sound, regardless of what alias he is using. The British musician has spent his decades-long career collaborating with similarly distinct artists, such as Warrior Queen, Flowdan, Death Grips, Justin Broadrick and Grouper. Martin’s new album, In Blue, continues his quest for artists he can work with to intensify the peculiarities and weight of his instrumentals. 

Dis Fig is the sole vocalist on In Blue, Martin’s first album as The Bug since Concrete Desert (2017) and marks his return to the legendary Hyperdub label. Like Concrete Desert, the album is meditative, even as The Bug employs his signature driving, dub-and dancehall-tipped drums, maniacal sound treatments and rib-cracking sub-bass. In 2019, Dis Fig released her debut album Purge, a heavy collection of experimental trips and deformed club tracks. The collaborative effort between The Bug and Dis Fig is in a sense one or two notches down from either artist’s peak intensity.

From the start, both The Bug and Dis Fig are all-in, with no opportunity to explore their sound further left unchecked, and the mood they evoke is constant throughout In Blue. Even if this leaves only a little room for variety — in texture and emotion — the overall consistency is a virtue by a third or fourth listen and beyond. It’s an album that melts into one 50-mintue piece, always churning and transforming within the boundaries The Bug and Dis Fig have set. 

Tracks like “Destroy Me” and “Blood” are gloomy recollections of The Bug’s beast-like dancefloor bombs — has there ever been a song as dutty and as life-affirming as “Poison Dart”? At the album’s half-way mark, “Levitating” announces the apex of the artists’ collaboration as songwriters. Dis Fig’s vocals bring the pop connotations, while The Bug pairs his sub-bass wobble with a lovely, relatively bright synth line, when it’s not being bullied by the percussion.

While it’s obvious that Dis Fig’s vocals are crucial to the album’s force, they can seem like a tool at Martin’s disposal, instead of the sound that show all of the other components are working together to elevate in the listener’s mind. Perhaps this is unavoidable, given that Dis Fig has set aside her production abilities to don the feature credit, even if her vocals are responsible for enhancing the emotional currents that flow through The Bug’s instrumentals.

The song that captures in its entirety the all-encompassing emotion of In Blue is the first single, “You.” Dis Fig’s bleeding confession is driven by The Bug’s ever-increasing dread, invoking the intangible fear that the entire album seems to be battling with. And like the inevitable surrender to the artists’ darkest fears, the album closes with “End in Blue,” a beautiful, beat-less conclusion to their tired world. The words “in blue” sweep across the mix, repeating over and over until the vocals and drones fuse together into a dense smog.

Featuring impeccable production and sincere emotions, In Blue is a rude reminder of Martin’s dedication to his sound, which is increasingly reflective and always genuine. Just don’t be put off by the fact that two artists have decided to embrace the tension of our doomy, gloomy 2020.

Mark Seneviratne is a data analyst for an arts funding organisation and is based in Manchester, UK. He also writes for The State of the Arts and Film Inquiry, and has a short story published in Not One of Us #64. At university, he thought having a Michael Haneke poster made him edgy.