Dis Fig

This amusingly titled new series of maxi-singles is devoted to collaborations between heavyweight dub auteur Kevin Martin and a resolving cast of like-minded female artists. Naturally, the first installment is devoted to Martin’s recurring collaborator Dis Fig (Felicia Chen), as the two previously worked together on 2020’s excellent In Blue album (Hyperdub) as well as the 2025 single “Silent.” Self-described as a “hallucinatory heat haze,” this “tale of post-break-up trauma” is very different from any of the duo’s previous pairings, as Dis Fig’s dark and spectral twist on soulful pop songcraft becomes the canvas for a series of bass-heavy, blown-out, and static-ravaged dirge-dub mutations.

In some ways, the actual single (“Vanishing”) is more of a conventional pop song than anything on In Blue, as it is just over three minutes long and features both a sensuous bass throb and a melodic chorus hook. In most other ways, however, it heads very much in the opposite direction, as it is quite a cold and minimal piece and one of its most prominent traits is that the crawling groove seems to be dragging a squall of moaning, hissing, and echoing nightmares in its wake. In fact, it arguably resembles an undead Massive Attack performing in a haunted underground parking garage, which is an aesthetic that I would generally prefer over hearing an actual Massive Attack song these days. In characteristic The Bug fashion, it is also pared to the fucking bone, as the actual music is essentially just a cool bass line, Dis Fig’s voice, a high hat, a kickdrum, and a snare, but it becomes even more spartan than that in the four variations that follow. The throbbing bass and the static-gnawed ghost trail of delay, however, remain very much the stars of the show. 

In what is likely an unintended nod to Carsten Nicolai’s Alva Noto project, the other versions of “Vanishing” feel a lot like increasingly degraded copies and re-copies of the original. For example, in the aptly titled “Vanished Dub,” Martin carves out almost all of the vocals except for a few echoing fragments, but he leaves in a single hard-hitting phrase (“may never feel again”) that managed to pass by me largely unnoticed in the original. Elsewhere, in my favorite piece (“Vanishing (Numb Mix)”), it is the snare that disappears instead yet Dis Fig’s vocals are now back in considerably less spectral form and the ravaged ghost of a Rhythm & Sound-style “dub chord” fitfully creeps into the mix as well. Then, in the two dubs of the Numb Mix that follow, Martin again chops the vocals into abstraction and artfully harnesses their echoing fragments to rhythmic and hallucinatory effect. 

Obviously, the fact that this release features five variations in a row of the same song means that its appeal is dependent on how enthusiastically one appreciates The Bug’s mixing and dub techniques, but all five are strong stand-alone bangers. At its best, Ladybug 1 feels like a more blurred, sexy, and hook-friendly update on the crushing, mechanized menace of The Bug’s “Machine” series, which is quite fitting because I suspect that the highlights from this series will eventually become a compilation every bit as great as 2024’s Machine.

Listen here.