The history of dub techno cannot be told without Paul St. Hilaire. Ever since he pioneered the genre alongside Mark Ernestus and Moritz von Oswald (of Basic Channel fame) in the 1990s, Hilaire’s vocals—subdued yet reassuring, peaceful yet sinister—have lent humanness and warmth to a style of music known for being cold, foggy, and impenetrable.
His latest LP, w/ the Producers, continues in this vein while still managing to break new ground. Like its predecessor, Tikiman Volume 1, w/ the Producers is a work of mind-bending, soft-focus radiance. It hisses, crackles, and glitches, but also sings, breathing life into the nether regions of dub.
If you’re familiar with dub techno, you’ll recognize that the album title is a nod to “w/ the Artists”, the acclaimed 2004 compilation by Rhythm & Sound, Basic Channel’s other alias. In “w/ the Artists”, Oswald and Ernestus employed a diverse cast of vocalists, including Hilaire himself alongside Cornell Campbell, Jennifer Lara, and many other decorated reggae legends.
“w/ the Producers” employs the same strategy but in reverse: each track features a different producer on the cut while Hilaire takes on singing duties. The guest list is absolutely stacked, including big-time electronic luminaries like Shinichi Atobe, Mala, Azu Tiwaline, and Aurora Halal.
There’s something darkly majestic about w/ the Producers, a sinister undertow creeping through each track. Hilaire’s vocals have a spectral, disembodied quality, as if there’s an enormous chasm of space between the instrumentation and his voice. That is evident right from the opener, “Like It’s Always Been”, where Hilaire’s vocals underscore ominous keys and huge, echoey kick drums courtesy of dubstep pioneer Mala.
In “Back Inna Business”, Hilaire sings in a menacing half-whisper over mist-swirls of dub-inflected ambience and stabs of sub-atomic bass. His vocals are the glue that holds the album together, bewitching the listener into a dreamlike state where relaxation always comes with a hint of dread.
“Time to Wake Up” sees Hilaire team up with legendary dub producer Shinichi Atobe, and it’s a slice of classic quantum dub, with kick drums full of metronomic oomph and bass that is deeply funky and subdued. The music here pays homage to dub techno’s past while still feeling like music from the future, and it’s part of what makes Hilaire so alluring. No one sounds quite like him, even when he’s got almost a dozen producers in tow.
Perhaps what sets Hilaire apart is that he understands dub techno is, at its core, rooted in dance music. Tracks like “Free Your Mind” and “Let the Night Start” have a real club-like energy, distilling dance music down to its barest essence. This is dance music’s bones and ectoplasm, if you will, at once incredibly bleak and skeletal yet rich and teeming with life. Listening to it makes you feel like you’re submerged ten thousand feet underwater, yet you don’t mind—all you want to do is dive deeper into the murk.