Stream the Ambient Dub Roller “Near Dark” by Hundebiss Records’ Dracula Lewis

Milan, Italy’s Hundebiss Records has had a significant voice in the experimental music conversation for a few years now. While they’ve put out records by scene mainstays, namely Aaron Dilloway and Hair Police, the real appeal comes from the slight wonkiness in their curatorial selections. Sewn Leather’s Sikknastafari Slash Crasstafari, is, well, a release as bizarre as any by Sewn Leather, and if you’re looking for a VHS by James Ferraro or Hype Williams (who later became Dean Blunt and Inga Copeland) or a vinyl reissue of Lil Ugly Mane’s Mista Thug Isolation, then they’re the label to turn to. 

Although they have had a quiet 2014 so far, it’s because they’ve been putting together something pretty uncommon (surprise!) for a label of their ilk: a mixtape. It’s called Technical XTC, with vocals from Hundebiss labelhead Simone Trabucchi, aka Dracula Lewis, and features production from an awesome cross-section of contemporary experimental music:  Alex from Sun Araw, Helm, Palmistry, John Olson from Wolf Eyes, and a bunch more. 

Ahead of Technical XTC’s release, they’ve shared the Palmistry-produced “Near Dark.” We’re told it was inspired by Vybz Kartel and Popcaan, which you maybe wouldn’t have guessed, and it’s a bass-y and dragging tune, with gleaming ambient synth pads and an '80s industrial-type mumbling vocal on top. Trabucchi says of the track: “For some reason the music evoked for me some scenes from Near Dark, an amazing flick by Kathryn Bigelow, which is basically a vampire movie in the American desert. There's something about the early morning scenes in that movie that is extraordinary dramatic. I like that perception of the idea of the sun.” You can preorder the mixtape here.