‘We Attack Before Dawn’ is the 3rd instalment in the ‘Sonar Base Transmissions’ series on Deeptrax created by the long standing Dutch Electro pioneer Frank De Groodt under his Sonar Base alias. After the Deeptrax reissue of the legendary first album ‘Sonar Bases 4-10’ and the first vinyl issue of the mini album ‘Dark Matter’, this next chapter is yet another collection of savage, clever and spooky electro tracks. First issued on vinyl by Cultivated Electronics in 2012, this reissue of ‘We Attack Before Dawn’ features a somewhat different tracklisting. It opens with the full bodied, TB-303-smeared electro of ‘The Deadly Storms of Uranus’. Slices of snare tear through an acrid acid line with shadows stalking the backdrop - a turgid and terrific opener. The second one, ‘The Soul Of e1-Q42z’ was only available as digital download before, but this track with pitch-dark haunted synth sounds and rolling beats would perfectly fit in a horror movie soundtrack and fully deserves a vinyl release. The 303 is once again employed for ‘The Journey Home’. But the aggression of ‘Deadly Storms…’ is pared back, with Sonar Base lowering the BPM for a meandering work of dereliction. ‘The Swarm’ is a hardy piece of raw electro too, but in comparison to the first trio of mechanized militia ‘The Swarm’ is sheathed. Last one, ’Photon Filers’ is also on vinyl for the first time, and much like ’The Soul…’, it sends you severe shivers up and down your spine. Don’t say we didn’t warn you! Frank de Groodt started releasing in the early 1990s, on Djax-Up-Beats (as The Operator, Optic Crux, Urban Electro) and on U-Trax (Sonar Base, Pieces of a Pensive State of Mind). Two of his later releases as FastGraph (on Klakson) got reissued in 2018. He is also involved in projects like Ultradyne and Random XS and one anonymous project…
