Initiation Ritual by Pete Sasqwax Beat Cult

With its woozy Rhodes chords, off kilter drum chops and punch-drunk percussion loops, the sonic footprint of the Beat Scene owes a great debt to the sun-soaked climes of California that incepted and incubated it… but what would have happened if it had been made somewhere else?

Replace the soaring heat of the LA streets with, say, the blistering furnaces of Yorkshire’s steel cities. What music would swell from beneath the overcast skies above William Blake’s “dark satanic mill towns” in the north of England? More folk horror than freak folk, you’d imagine. More Delia Derbyshire and the Radiophonic Workshop than Carol Kaye and The Wrecking Crew, one might suspect…

This is not an environment within which a Scene can be nurtured and nourished! Only a fool would even consider it! This poisoned petri dish of rust and ruin could only foster something far less pleasant and palatable. Not a scene, then, so what else? A movement? Better not mention movement - not when we’re this close to those woods. Movement spooks people - even the hardy ones.

The townsfolk whisper of bleak and unspeakable things lurking on the outskirts of outlying villages: hooded figures in the moonlight… guttural chanting… an ancient stone altar… a rising thrum of bass that sears the soul… and the drums. Dear pagan gods help us, THE DRUMS.

So what are we dealing with here?

From what we can tell, British B-movie beat scientist, Waxfactor, now going by the name Pete Sasqwax, has cobbled together a band of similarly minded ear bruisers hell bent upon unleashing the most brutal drum filth under the murky moniker: BEAT CULT.

Any traces of his previous penchant for sampling seem to have given way to the call of corrosively swollen synths, belligerent bass, and a frankly bewildering devotion to truly devastating drums.

Is it an album?

We don’t know what it is - you tell us! At just over 45 minutes long, it’s definitely album length, but don’t be expecting track titles - or even separated tracks (Pete claims that he Frankensteined it together from the carcasses of 23 individual fragments, so make of that what you will). This singular slab of syncopated sampler sacrilege scoops you up in its festering fist from the first second and drags you through the drum filth for the duration of one side of a C90 and, with his background in mixtapes and turntable trickery, one suspects that this cassette-inspired run-time is no coincidence.


Is it hip-hop?

We understand why you’d ask that, particularly if you heard his seminal ‘Sci-Fu’ full length or his appearance on Lex Records’ iconic Lexoleum compilation, but, honestly, we don’t know what to call it. Pete calls it “dirtbeat” which is all well and good, as far as genre titles go, but we’ve yet to see a similarly titled section down the local record shop…

The PETE SASQWAX BEAT CULT is a shadowy organisation about which little is known.

Its de facto leader, PETE SASQWAX, resides in South Yorkshire, UK, and has released material (under various names) on labels such as: Lex; Needlework; Apeman; I Had An Accident and more.

Mixing up raw drums, analogue synths and a barrage of found sounds, he refers to the concoction simply as: DIRTBEAT.

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