Born into a family of musicians, it’s unsurprising that it’s taken Barcelona’s Cauto no time at all to make his mark on the dub/step & electronic community. With releases on dj/Rupture’s Dutty Artz (on the excellent Dutty Remix Zero release), and Spanish labels Discontinu and Disboot, he’s quickly developing a small, yet impressive, back catalogue that’s about to augmented by a Filastine remix and a second EP for Disboot.

His new, free download release, ‘Despertar’ (tr: ‘to wake up’), kicks into play with a brush of lightly scattered, percussive dubstep, full of tight, angular edits and chopped dub vocals. This type of off-point, beat manipulation is perhaps his signature move, particularly when interplayed with strings and washes. It’s clear that his classical training is liberally deployed, yet meticulously deposited, as if he’s mindful not to suffocate the sense of space around. Taste a sample below, and download the full EP release at disboot.net.

Cauto – Despartar | mp3

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As an itinerant annalist of a melange of sounds from around the world, Filastine has little or no equal. From the first moment that he drafted a set of sticks as drummer for Seattle’s Tchkung! in 1990s, through his life as rebel leader of the “tactical mobile rhythmic unit” Infernal Noise Brigade through to the 2006 Filastine debut, ‘Burn It’ – Grey Filastine has forgone convention in favour of confrontation. The collage of sounds, philosophies, ideas and cultures that once again spring to attention in the new full-length ‘Dirty Bomb’ come off as an uncompromising, unfettered alternative soundtrack to Life On Earth.

Grey points out that there were no “canned loops” or “mail-order vocals” – acoustic instruments and vocals were sourced, discussed, recorded and bound to hard drive in collaborative sessions. Sweeping through Bucharest, Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Tokyo, Bangladesh, Sydney, Granada and Marrakesh, ‘Dirty Bomb’ uniquely treats these original recordings as the source samples that are then dragged mercilessly through layers of processing, and landing somewhere altogether new and hitherto undiscovered. ‘B’atalla’ features Rabah from French / Algerian hip hop crew MBS, who – on this one track alone – raps in French, English, Berber, Arabic and Spanish.

Filastine – B’talla (feat. Rabah) | mp3

In collaboration with with DJ/Rupture’s Soot records and Post World Industries, ‘Dirty Bomb’ also marks the first release for Australia’s ‘Uber Lingua‘ label – the natural extension of the DJ, VJ, MC and live collective that has been largely responsible for introducing a new vision of contemporary and alternative ‘global’ music into the aural culture of the country. Aus / NZ residents can buy ‘Dirty Bomb’ now from uberlingua.com and can also look forward to a Filastine tour (including appearances at the Sydney Festival), in tandem with Maga Bo, in January.

Previous Filastine, Infernal Noise Brigade and Tchkung! releases available via Post World Industries.

Download another track from ‘Dirty Bomb’, ‘Fitnah’ (featuring Jessika Skeletalia Kenney) at Pitchfork.