Rabit: Les Fleurs Du Mal review – dancefloor deconstructed too far

In underground clubbing there has been a recent vogue for “deconstructed” tracks; agglomerations of barely rhythmic noise that can prove brutally funky. Rabit, a producer who previously created icy grime-like tracks and blasts of apocalyptic techno, has now deconstructed to the point of collapse, and subsequent tedium. With its whirrs of brooding machinery and foreboding, far-off storms, Les Fleurs Du Mal is more sound design than music, and while second-to-second it is impressively three-dimensional, its sheer abstraction means that genuine terror, sorrow or poignancy never build up. Only the prettily flickering Bleached World and psychosexual drama of Dogsblood Redemption prove diverting. The absolutely devastated humanity is probably the point – is this a dystopia to walk back from? – and hardcore experimentalists may find it immersive, but for everyone else it’s an inadvertent reminder of how rhythm can invest sound with meaning.