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In these days of blog-driven set lists, nonstop genre Fabric mixes, and a race to the bottom for the electro ephemera that seemed to be driving dance music from all sides just a couple of years ago, it's hardly fair to call DJ/Rupture a "DJ" or, this album a "mix." Which is to say that he's playing an entirely different game or, rather, that he's playing several different games at once. The main one remains dub--dubstep, dancehall, reggaeton, and their various overlaps--which is something Rupture has been at since his 2002 debut. That he hasn't exploded as a producer or DJ during this dubstep boom probably has something to do with Rupture's curious ear: He doesn't sit still long enough to get painted inside a genre.

Earlier this year Rupture collaborated with the Ex's Andy Moor on the infinitely listenable Patches; for Solar Life Raft, he teams up this time with Matt Shadetek, a fellow dubstep head. Patches narrowed Rupture's palette quite a bit in tone and color to match Moor's gloomy, frequently brittle, guitar playing, leaving a downcast album that sort of went against Rupture's sunnier, wide-eared side. You imagine Rupture let that happen only because he had Raft--main ingredients: dubstep, ragga, and a broad "other" that includes a pair of atmospheric dub numbers credited to Shadetek and Rupture--in the pipeline. The mix doesn't lean on the usual dubstep suspects hardly at all: Roommate makes an appearance; sub-bass doomsayer Shackleton gets a minute and a half. Indie-ish folks such as NYC's Gang Gang Dance and Telepathe, contributing the raw materials for a lovely, dubbed-out remix by Rupture and Shadetek, slip in nicely. It is, mind you, a listening mix first--beats often feel like they're in negative time, and sometimes just aren't there at all--but the duo's unearthed more than a few for the feet as well.

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