Sabre takes distortion-led experiments back to Critical on Big Cat EP

Big Cat EP is out on Critical Music and streaming from the label's Bandcamp page. Beatportal covered it under the framing that Sabre — credited there as a founder of Ivy Lab — has returned to Critical with raw, distortion-led drum & bass experiments. That is the extent of what the label and press have put on record so far; the individual titles and any collaborators are not something I can confirm from what has been published.

The Critical connection is the point. Sabre's history with Kasra's label predates Ivy Lab's move into halftime and its own imprint, and a return under his solo name puts the record in a different bracket than the trio's later output — closer to the technical, engineering-first end of the catalogue that Critical has kept running alongside its more experimental releases. "Distortion-led" is Beatportal's word, and it is a specific one for a label that has historically favoured clean low end and precise drum edits.

Anyone tracking this end of the catalogue should treat the Bandcamp stream as the primary source rather than the press copy. The EP is recent enough that there is no meaningful DJ support or reception to report yet, which is why there is no score attached here.