Kid 606

Although an unfortunate many of the city's drum & bass/jungle/breakbeat heads don't even know what Mississippi Nights is, let alone where it is, and are so single-minded that they wouldn't consider actually going there to see something interesting and somewhat up their alley (it's warehouse space or nothin' for most of 'em), and even if they did they'd probably turn up their testosterone-stuffed nose at it because of the "somewhat" of the last statement, and are still recovering from last night's activities at 8:30 p.m. (eating breakfast, reading the morning paper) -- so many insurmountable obstacles, so few excuses -- Kid 606 is a totally boss sonic terrorist who fuses deep, harmonic bass with white noise and digital explosions (all those 0's and 1's fly around like shrapnel) to create a wonderful mess. Jungle heads, they'd love it, if only ...

One 20-year-old Kid, some samplers, an attitude and the Mississippi Nights sound system spells trouble for your eardrums, no doubt, but it'll be worth it. Over the course of one full-length, one split-length and a few other things on the formerly punk, increasingly electronic label Vinyl Communications, 606 has messed with the linear logic of most electronic music, tossing so much detritus into his computer can that it's hard to tell where the root beat is -- and what is or isn't a beat -- let alone attempt to dance to it. You can't, unless you ignore the beat and just kinda writhe to the noise.

The Slayer, Melvins and Mr. Bungle fans coming to see Fantomas (see page 69) will no doubt whup Kid 606's ass after the show for the mess he made, but that's OK. We'll watch his back, because it's tough to offend said metal freaks, and if he can succeed at alienating both them and the jungle heads, well, he must be doing something right. Oh, and what does the music sound like, you ask? Kid 606 describes it best: ""TWEERPWLLBLKWPIJBLEEPBLOOP' in the night."