FEARFUL — THE CRAFT / SIDE EFFECTS 🇬🇧 ENGLAND — DRUM & BASS / MINIMAL D&B / INTELLIGENT DRUM & BASS — ADVANCE REVIEW Review by Gordon Lawrence Taylor — Voice In The Void Infectious Unease Radio • Subterranean Zone Radio 16 September 2026
Review by Gordon Lawrence Taylor — Voice In The Void Infectious Unease Radio • Subterranean Zone Radio 16 September 2026
Artist: Fearful — England Label: Yamatai Records — Bristol, England Release: The Craft / Side Effects Catalogue: YAMREC070 Release Date: 16 October 2026 Format: Two-track single Artwork: Gaijin Graphics Mastering: Kalane Mastering
Tracks: “The Craft” — 4:19 • “Side Effects” — 4:08
TWO PERIODS OF DRUM & BASS, ONE PRODUCTION IDENTITY
With The Craft / Side Effects, Fearful returns to Yamatai Records with a two-track release that does something more interesting than simply place two drum & bass productions beside one another. The record deliberately examines two different periods in the development of the genre: one looking towards the intricate, rolling and comparatively restrained structures associated with an earlier era of modern drum & bass, the other engaging with the denser, more aggressive sound-design language of the contemporary dancefloor.
Fearful is a London-based producer whose work extends across drum & bass, dubstep, techno and dark ambient, giving this release a broader context than a straightforward exercise in stylistic revival. Yamatai Records, founded in 2021 and based in Bristol, has similarly developed a catalogue that treats drum & bass as a flexible musical field rather than a single fixed formula.
Listening to the supplied WAV masters makes the distinction between the two tracks especially apparent. They share a common rhythmic lineage, yet their internal architecture, tonal balance and treatment of percussion and bass demonstrate markedly different approaches to how drum & bass can create movement, tension and physical impact.
The result is effectively a conversation between different generations of the same musical language.
“THE CRAFT”
“The Craft” immediately establishes itself through rhythm.
Its percussion is unusually important to the track’s identity. Rather than relying upon one oversized central event, the composition develops through detailed drum programming, tightly controlled transient movement and a continuous sense of forward propulsion.
The upper rhythmic field is particularly active. Fine percussion, crisp attacks and rapidly shifting details continually move around the central groove, while the low frequencies provide weight without swallowing the architecture above them.
This is where the description of “The Craft” as a roller becomes especially appropriate.
A successful roller does not necessarily require dramatic structural gestures every few seconds. Its strength can instead come from accumulation: comparatively small rhythmic alterations that modify the relationship between drums, bass and empty space without destroying the underlying momentum.
Fearful understands that principle.
There is discipline in the construction. Elements enter and withdraw without making the arrangement feel unnecessarily crowded, and the track maintains propulsion through rhythmic interaction rather than relying exclusively upon dramatic drops.
The title itself becomes interesting in this context. “The Craft” can be read quite literally as a reference to technique: the craft of drum programming, arrangement, bass construction and the less immediately visible decisions that determine whether a rhythm actually moves.
This is not nostalgia presented as historical reconstruction.
It is an older production philosophy being examined through contemporary tools.
RHYTHM AS ARCHITECTURE
One of the strengths of “The Craft” is that its complexity does not require the listener to consciously analyse every individual rhythmic component.
The percussion functions collectively.
Kick, snare, secondary hits, high-frequency detail and bass all occupy defined positions, producing the sensation of continuous movement. There is an almost mechanical precision underneath the track, yet it never becomes sterile.
That distinction is important.
Electronic music can be technically exact while remaining physically expressive. Drum & bass has always existed within that tension: machine-controlled timing interacting with rhythmic structures intended to affect the body.
“The Craft” demonstrates that relationship extremely well.
Its atmosphere also connects with a period of drum & bass in which minimalism did not mean absence. Minimal productions could contain extraordinary amounts of microscopic information while leaving sufficient space between major elements for every sound to retain significance.
Fearful previously explored similarly stripped-back territory on his 2025 Yamatai release Dark City / Beldray, which the label itself associated with a darker, minimal-focused approach. That release marked his Yamatai debut and included a collaboration with Amoss on “Beldray.”
“The Craft” continues that conversation, although its emphasis on flowing percussion gives it a character of its own.
“SIDE EFFECTS”
If “The Craft” derives much of its personality from intricate rhythmic movement, “Side Effects” shifts the centre of gravity.
It is darker, heavier and more directly physical.
The bass occupies a more pronounced role in the overall tonal balance, while the arrangement generates impact through stronger contrasts between reduced passages and sections of concentrated rhythmic pressure.
There is more confrontation in the sound.
Where “The Craft” draws the listener forward through continuing movement, “Side Effects” repeatedly creates space and then uses that space to make the returning drums and bass appear larger.
This principle is central to effective electronic production.
Silence—or near-silence—is not simply the absence of sound. It becomes an active structural device. Removing information temporarily changes the listener’s perception of what follows.
Fearful uses that contrast effectively.
The drums possess a sharper and more forceful relationship with the bass design, creating the modern dancefloor character identified in Yamatai’s advance information. Yet the production does not become an indiscriminate wall of sound.
There remains sufficient separation between the elements for the internal machinery to remain audible.
PRESSURE, SPACE AND CONTEMPORARY SOUND DESIGN
“Side Effects” demonstrates how substantially the perceived character of drum & bass can change even when its fundamental rhythmic framework remains recognisable.
The difference between these two tracks is therefore not simply conceptual.
It is audible in their production architecture.
“The Craft” places greater emphasis upon the upper rhythmic field: finely articulated percussion, restless transient activity and continuous rolling movement.
“Side Effects” shifts more of its perceived weight downwards. Bass and low-frequency pressure become more dominant, while the arrangement makes stronger use of contrast between relatively reduced spaces and concentrated impact.
This is where the pairing becomes intellectually interesting.
The release is not merely presenting old drum & bass versus new drum & bass.
That would be too simplistic.
Instead, it demonstrates how changes in production aesthetics can radically alter the emotional and physical character of music operating within the same broad rhythmic tradition.
Technology develops.
Mixing conventions change.
Sound design changes.
Mastering expectations change.
Playback systems change.
Yet the fundamental conversation between rhythm, bass and space continues.
TWO ERAS IN CONVERSATION
Electronic music has an unusually complex relationship with its own history.
A production language can emerge, become dominant, fall temporarily from fashion and then return years later in reconstructed form. Jungle, drum & bass, dubstep, techno, electro and industrial music all repeatedly consume, transform and redistribute elements of their own histories.
This is not necessarily repetition.
It can be a form of musical archaeology.
Producers return to older rhythmic structures because those structures still contain possibilities that have not been exhausted.
The Craft / Side Effects works particularly well when understood from that perspective.
Fearful is not presenting an argument that one era of drum & bass was superior to another. Instead, the two tracks demonstrate different solutions to the same fundamental problem:
How can rhythm and bass create sustained physical tension?
“The Craft” answers through detail, movement and carefully maintained momentum.
“Side Effects” answers through weight, contrast and concentrated sonic pressure.
Put together, they show that musical development does not necessarily involve discarding previous methods.
Sometimes development means understanding those methods well enough to reorganise them.
FEARFUL — ACROSS THE BASS SPECTRUM
Fearful’s broader catalogue makes this approach particularly credible.
His official catalogue describes a sound extending across drum & bass, dubstep, techno and dark ambient. That movement between different areas of bass and electronic music has been part of his work for years rather than a recent development.
His relationship with Yamatai has also developed beyond a single appearance.
Following Dark City / Beldray in 2025, Fearful subsequently collaborated with Colombian producer Brain on “The First Step,” appearing on Yamatai’s Kaioken / The First Step release later that year.
This history matters because YAMREC070 feels less like an isolated signing and more like the continuation of a developing relationship between artist and label.
Yamatai’s catalogue deliberately accommodates numerous forms of drum & bass, while Fearful’s production history demonstrates a similar resistance to confinement within one narrow stylistic category.
That makes The Craft / Side Effects a natural meeting point.
HŌ-Ō — DESTRUCTION, REBIRTH AND RENEWAL
The visual presentation deserves attention in its own right.
Yamatai accompanies YAMREC070 with the concept of Hō-ō, the Japanese phoenix, associated in the label’s accompanying text with peace, prosperity and renewal.
Gaijin Graphics’ artwork places the bird at the centre of an extraordinary field of red, rust, ash, darkness and incandescent light.
The Hō-ō appears almost to be burning from within.
Its central body is intensely illuminated while its wings and surrounding forms fragment outward into feather-like, flame-like and smoke-like structures. The boundaries between animal, fire and environment become deliberately unstable.
The image simultaneously suggests formation and destruction.
It is difficult to determine whether the creature is emerging from the surrounding chaos or disappearing back into it.
That ambiguity makes the artwork particularly appropriate for this release.
Renewal is not presented as something clean or uncomplicated.
Something must be transformed before something else can emerge.
The same principle can be applied to electronic music.
Genres survive partly because musicians continually dismantle their established forms and reconstruct them.
Older methods become raw material.
Historical production languages become contemporary tools.
Memory becomes innovation.
THE ARTWORK AND THE MUSIC
The visual relationship between the phoenix and these two tracks is stronger than it might initially appear.
“The Craft” reaches into an earlier rhythmic vocabulary without attempting to reproduce the past unchanged.
“Side Effects” represents the more contemporary transformation of that language.
The phoenix therefore becomes an effective metaphor for what the record itself is doing.
The past is not simply remembered.
It is burned down, reorganised and returned in another form.
The darker regions of the artwork also correspond particularly well with the atmosphere of “Side Effects,” while the intricate feather structures and fine visual lines surrounding the central figure find an interesting parallel in the detailed percussion of “The Craft.”
Whether intentional or not, the visual and musical components therefore share a common architecture: density surrounding a strongly defined central structure.
The artwork by Gaijin Graphics should consequently be regarded as part of the identity of YAMREC070 rather than merely packaging surrounding it.
PRODUCTION AND MASTERING
The supplied advance WAV masters also demonstrate how carefully differentiated these tracks are at production level.
“The Craft” carries noticeably greater activity through its upper frequencies. Percussion is allowed to occupy a significant amount of sonic attention, producing brightness and constant microscopic movement.
“Side Effects” is comparatively darker in its overall balance.
More of the perceived force is concentrated through bass and lower-frequency material, contributing significantly to its heavier character.
That contrast is particularly useful because it means the conceptual distinction between the tracks survives outside the promotional description.
It can actually be heard.
The mastering by Kalane Mastering retains the physical intensity required for contemporary drum & bass while allowing the defining characteristics of each track to remain separate.
They sound related without sounding interchangeable.
That is exactly what this release requires.
CONCLUSION
Fearful’s The Craft / Side Effects succeeds because its central concept is not merely written around the music after the fact.
It exists inside the recordings.
“The Craft” investigates the rolling, intricate and comparatively restrained rhythmic language associated with an earlier period of modern drum & bass. Its identity is built from movement, detail and the relationship between numerous small rhythmic events.
“Side Effects” turns towards a contemporary production aesthetic built upon darker bass pressure, sharper contrasts and greater immediate physical impact.
Neither track exists simply to demonstrate technical ability.
Together they illustrate how substantially a genre can change while retaining its fundamental identity.
The most interesting aspect of YAMREC070 is therefore not that Fearful can produce two different kinds of drum & bass.
It is that both pieces reveal different historical answers to the same musical questions.
How much information should a rhythm contain?
How much should be removed?
Where should the weight sit?
How can repetition remain compelling?
How does a producer create tension without sacrificing movement?
And what happens when a musical language developed in an earlier technological environment is reconstructed using contemporary production methods?
The Craft / Side Effects does not attempt to answer those questions theoretically.
It answers them through sound.
One track looks backward without becoming trapped by nostalgia.
The other looks forward without severing its relationship with the genre’s history.
Placed together, they form a compact study in drum & bass evolution—two periods, two production philosophies and one recognisable Fearful identity.
RELEASE DETAILS
FEARFUL — THE CRAFT / SIDE EFFECTS Artist: Fearful — England Label: Yamatai Records — Bristol, England Catalogue Number: YAMREC070 Release Date: 16 October 2026 Genre: Drum & Bass • Minimal D&B • Intelligent Drum & Bass Track One: “The Craft” — 4:19 Track Two: “Side Effects” — 4:08 Artwork: Gaijin Graphics Mastering: Kalane Mastering
Advance promotional WAV masters supplied by Yamatai Records via Inflyte.
ARTIST & LABEL BY COUNTRY
ENGLAND — St George’s Cross: Fearful • Yamatai Records
