Sleek, sensual bass science from the NYC SLINK boss, sketching a new blueprint for dub in the 2020s.

Kenzo Perron, AKA K Wata, uses bass the way a poet uses punctuation. Sub weight, subtle wobbles and snaking rhythms become commas, dashes and periods—tiny gestures that shape movement, tension and release.

Perron's sound sits somewhere between the cavernous minimalism of Rhythm & Sound and the wiry precision of Livity Sound, pulling equally from sound system culture, contemporary minimalism and East Coast club music. His breakthrough 2021 EP, What Do U Wan, sounds like the photo negatives of a Fade to Mind record redesigned for sunrise at Sustain-Release (not to mention his work with Daytimers affiliate Enayet as E-Wata).

More broadly, Perron belongs to a a growing American underground reshaping dub techno and bass music in adventurous ways. What sets his music apart, however, is the way it balances delicacy with kineticism and, as his RA Mix makes clear, a touch of sexiness and intimacy too. RA.1039 draws from that very sonic palette.

RA.1039 is mainly composed of contemporary dub tracks released in the past decade (with a few choice exceptions). One minute we're wigging out to the krautrock-meets-Black Ark Studio of Eiger Drums Propaganda, the next we're slinking to the hi-fi club of Significant Other. In Perron's hand they melt into a molten liquid of sexy, sleek, bass science.

Find the tracklist and read the Q&A at ra.co/podcast/1058

@kwatakwata