On the 2015 album
Closing Ice, one of his many recordings under the name
Senking, German musician Jens Massel continues to explore the sparse, dub-influenced sound he established in the late '90s, while retaining the hint of dubstep bassweight that crept into his work around the early 2010s. Sticking to hardware rather than programming everything on a laptop,
Senking's recordings embrace the faults and limitations of manipulating everything by hand in real time, with crackling static peeking out from underneath the cavernous echo on tracks like opener "Scouts and Spies." "Dustclouds" and "Lighthouse Hustle" both contain heavy drums and growling bass recalling the industrial-dub experiments of
Scorn and various
Justin Broadrick and/or Kevin Martin-related projects. Several tracks, such as "Serpent" and "Winter Brevet," recall sonic aspects of the '90s illbient scene, although here they sound a bit more amped up and slathered in ferocious bass. Balancing calmly paced tempos with tense bursts of bass,
Closing Ice is fierce and chilling. ~ Paul Simpson