Sigma‘s BeatsBassLife new release is a song by S9 called Morse Code, and it’s all about a skull-piercing discharge of D&B with mind-bending rhythms and minimalist sound-design. While the latter is used to bring some primeval wilderness to the UK duo’s new Drum & Bass festival anthem, the overall atmosphere on the track can’t be perceived separate from its strong futuristic references.
The technological side of Morse Code manifests itself through several aspects, the more obvious of which is the title of the song. As the spoken-word sample informs the listener about the complexities of rhythm as a phenomenon and its usage as a means of communication, the association of the drum-section with Morse code becomes almost inevitable. But this precise, mechanistic drum section on the new S9 song gets a defibrillator shock from the producers, who make it animated with the help of groove. Atypical for D&B, it still somehow manages to sound like a very recognizable, but reimplemented sound of a genre-classic record.
Almost all the main elements of S9 – Morse Code sound spatially isolated. With the growling, rumbly bass being the dominant sound and the percussive synths surrounding it, the only parts where it emerges from the digital vacuum are the modestly sprinkled transitions. This doesn’t concern the stereo-width of Morse Code, because on that part it fits the highest standards of a modern D&B mix. In that sense, production-wise Morse Code is a counterpart to the duo’s collaboration with Coppa from 2020 titled Collide. While both, the new track and the above mentioned collaboration are solid Drum & Bass festival anthems, in its sonically closed nature and minimalism Morse Code finds a way to deliver the raw energy of D&B in a much more focused manner.
