When Orange Milk founder Keith Rankin penned a feature for our Labeled series, he opened with the blunt admission, “the label began like any other small business in America, I’m assuming—with self preservation and self promotion in mind…” The self-promotion side refers to his Giant Claw project, which is getting a new release entitled Dark Web later this year.
Separated into eight, uniformly named pieces, Dark Web is a manifestation of Rankin’s late night exploration of the Internet’s ever-expanding depths, the infinite crates that inspire his art. For Rankin, the Internet is like our universe, amplifying outwards and in doing so, creating more dark matter to eventually be illuminated by discovery. On Giant Claw’s “Dark Web oo2”, Rankin is reaching the metal arm deep into the stuffed animal pile to unearth the unseen jewels. The percussion is a hypnotic clang similar to Radiohead’s “Idioteque”, but the texture that surrounds it is elusive, ranging from MIDI-baroque to the sensual ease of electronic r&b. “Dark Web 002” is evolved with a refusal for complacency, as the track even manages to touch on Chicago ghettotech tropes.
Giant Claw’s Dark Web is out September 30 on Orange Milk.
