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Based in the depths of the South West, Alternative Blueprint are as independently minded as the region they come from as they favour the “hard to categorise and musically enriched from many styles and influences” genre.

Well, that seems covers one of their long-standing artists as Opitkatechniqua who finally unveils his album to the world with the dirty electronic bass bin experiments of dubstep ragga, jungle, acid and breakcore music. And he certainly nails his beats to the speakers with the opening track on Sinister Dub, ‘The Rudeboy Sound’ with a half step-timed rhythm and squelching, dirty bass that wouldn’t seem out of place alongside the likes of Robert Logan (with his new album Inscape or Bass Clef and enough wobble for even Mr. Scruff.

‘Settle For Fiction’ is his warning not to listen to too much gangster rap and the next track, ‘Be Nice To People’ takes to the dark under-belly as being nice to people in this case is warped d’n’b with broken up drum beats, squeezing in another sub-base culture helped by the twisted EFX vocals.

‘Stickle It’ is the Pinky-Perky rave non-sense vocal that’s always annoying but with a fuzzy bass drone and d’n’b it’s a bit of a grower in a One Foot In The Rave warm-up way; in fact, in a sinister way - what is a stickle? Also, mark down ‘Pure Sexxx’ as XXX - most disturbing.

Optiakte certainly knows how to shake a bass bin with his synths with ‘Sloth Bite’ and the slow jestation of ‘Six Month Flower’. ‘The Door’ is proper old-skool d’n’b madness of sampled vocal and the highlight is Buddy Peace-esque jigsaw called ‘Rinse It’. And being on the boarders of Bristol dubstep scene, any upcoming producer would want some Mary Anne Hobbs love and it so happens, he get is as she said of ‘Rinse It’, “‘I absolutely love this track…”

Optikatechniqua uses elements of ragga, electro, jungle, d’n’b, broken beat, breaks, hip-hop and more to create his own scary soundscape world. And just to mark his leftfield credentials, ‘She Can Hear’ and ‘Black And Blue Beat’ are a bit of a experimental and then there’s ‘Everyone’s A Suspect’ where the delta blues meets a swamp d’n’b with paranoid Kerouac/Gnade poetry from someone called Automated Acoustics; it’s a bit of a freak out.

So no surprise then that fans are as diverse as the Plump DJ’s (“Amazing production, fat tunes, sounds wicked”), John Moore of Coldcut (“Nice and squelchy; my kind of sound”), Domu (“Fresh and uninhibited”) and Rocky of Xpress 2 and Kiss FM) (“Modern and forward thinking”).

Optikatechniqua might be a bit of a daft name, but put him down as yet another one to watch and this is mind-blowing stuff and truly sinister.

Reviewed: Optikatechniqua - Sinister Dub (Alternative Blueprint) Cat. No. ALTBLUE005 Release date: 13th April, 2009
Tracklisting:
1. That Rudeboy Sound (4:08)
2. Settle For Fiction (4:55)
3. Be Nice To People (1:50)
4. Stickle It (3:54)
5. Sloth Bite (3:26)
6. Six Month Flower (3:00)
7. She Can Hear (3:49)
8. The Door (3:47)
9. Pure Sexxx (3:29)
10. Rinse It (3:48)
11. Sub Symphony (3:55)
12. Everyone’s A Suspect feat. Automated Acoustics (4:01)
13. Black And Blue Beat (3:14)
14. Red Of Tooth And Claw (3:46)

Links:
www.myspace.com/optikatechniqua
www.last.fm/music/Optikatechniqua
www.myspace.com/automatedacoustics
www.myspace.com/alternativeblueprint
www.alternativeblueprint.com
Bristol: Rise Up by Benjamin Slinger bbc.co.uk/radio1/maryannehobbs/bristol Pinch; unofficial King of the Bristol dubstep scene. Phenomenal producer, international DJ, founder of the Tectonic