Belfast’s Deeply Armed’s “Black Ice” is an obsessive, obsidian love song. Delivered by Micheal McKeown with menaces that mirror The Stone Rose’s Ian Brown. Accompanied by Kenny Whaley’s bad ass bass riffing, Saul Rayson’s slow, rolling, funky drumming, Aaron O’Neill’s tumbling bleep breakdowns and soulful backing from Marion Jordan, whose contributions, by turns, call to mind Denise Johnston, Merry Clayton and Clare Torry.  

For the first of 2 remixes Andrew Fearn, of Sleaford Mods, adopts his Extndntwrk alias and ramps the tempo right up. Swapping Rayson’s traps for a rattling, rocketing machine. Resulting in some racing post-punk rock (sorta similar to Andrew Weatherall and Steve Boardman’s work on groups such as Battant). A leftfield dancer, stuttered, staccato, with snippets of the chorus. Jittery. With gated ghosts of Jordan’s backing. Locked in a hypnotic groove. 

Mad Professor’s dub then has the low end, distorted, rumbling, while the vocals are limited to delay drenched washes. New keys introducing an offbeat skank. The song now as if sucked through a dark void, and out the other side. A slo-mo meteor shower of sonic splinters. Torn apart by impossible gravity. Echoing both the Prof’s groundbreaking re-imagining of Massive Attack’s “Protection”, and Adrian Sherwood’s radical reshape of Primal Scream’s “Vanishing Point”.

Deeply Armed’s “Black Ice” can be ordered directly from Echo Pet Recordings.