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We’re big fans of electro-rock racket-makers Vuvuvultures, so when they decide something’s good enough to join them on their own Energy Snake Records roster, you’d better believe we want to hear it. The cinematic sounds of Wild West-obsessed Saint Agnes have been wowing audiences recently, and now they’re joined by dark techno duo Ossa Di Mare (Italian for ‘Bones of the Sea’) whose new video for ‘Opaque’, taken from their recently released Absence EP, is presented below for the first time.

Filled with enough sub-bass to melt your ears like they’re chocolate bars in a badly air-conditioned newsagent, the track is six minutes of deliciously moody electronics. The video, directed by London-based fashion photographer Jose Montemayor, fits it like a studded leather glove. In keeping with the murky atmosphere of the music, much of it is uncompromisingly abstract, and yet full of subtle beauty. Opening with the kaleidoscopic image of knuckles being plunged into ink (or at least I hope they’re knuckles. And ink, for that matter), Montemayor adds a stylish symmetry to Ossa di Mare’s narcotic throb, with images floating in and out of sight till you’re not sure quite where you are any more.

The controlled musical production of ‘Opaque’ is similarly disorientating – rather opaque, in fact. Elements drift in and out in like smoke particles viewed through a microscope. The lost shadow of a cymbal rhythm here, the distant echo of a dead prayer there, it makes half the releases on Blackest Ever Black look distinctly colourful.

Much like Vuvuvultures themselves – Antipodeans who combined their creative forces to full effect upon reaching London – Ossa di Mare travelled many miles to find each other. Mri Ku is Australian and Niobe is from Italy, but you can hear the capital’s influence on their sound too, both via its reputation as a city known for exploring the boundaries of bass and electronics, and by reflecting the colder and more alienating facets of its psycho-geographical character. Ossa di Mare have captured something here. We can’t wait to hear what they snare next.

Kier Wiater Carnihan