Mind Body Complexing presents the refinement and enhancement of live synth jams, into seven tightly wrought, impossibly funky tracks.
Seven tightly wrought, impossibly funky tracks
Since last we checked in on Trichome earlier this year (see my writeup of Cognitive Dissonance here), Barry Hewitt has been busy. His Soundcloud page has been constantly updated with deep experiments—live synth jams that flirt with the edges of his bass—heavy, electro-derived sound. A new album dropped on Schematic in May 2021; Mind Body Complexing presents the refinement and enhancement of these jams, into seven tightly wrought, impossibly funky tracks.
“The Anticipator” establishes the sonic vocabulary: tight sub-bass, freaky fx, and a microscopically precise electro groove. Hewitt manages to checkpoint all the classic electro markers like the 808 clavé and snare but moves past cliches with sparse, characteristically Schematic approach. The next track, “RainBow Bridge Troll,” takes these elements and elevates them an extra level with hallucination-inducing stereo width effects and an absolutely filthy resonant bassline. When the double-time beat kicks in at 4:40, just clear the hell out lest you be destroyed.
“Reality Transurfing” continues the theme and adds a distorted, alien vocal sample. Between the blasts of filtered feedback, the snarling vocals, and the industrial atmospherics, I felt like this was the strongest track on the release. Next up, “Recht Wire” threatens to depart from the highly successful formula by introducing dark ambient washes and an ominous bass tone, but it soon evolves into another nasty banger of a track. The mood here is hard to characterize but it’s absolutely distinctive: the beats are restrained and delicately placed, but there’s a stealthy, deadly groove behind everything on the album. The acidic lines that come in on the back half of “Recht Wire” exemplify this aesthetic, as does the low-n-slow approach of “Spat Chula,” which follows and extends it into impossibly fat lowrider territory.
“Creeper Within” and the closer “Journey to Unalignment” walk more commonly-tread—if still far out on the edge—turf. My ears are still tricked and baffled by how much directionality and space is presented by the mix on these tracks, but I’ve come to terms with how the spare, almost minimalist arrangements can still sound so vast and enveloping.
Short version, it’s dope—if you’re at all into the Schematic “sound,” laid out by Phoenecia’s Brownout two decades ago and constantly refined and advanced by the artists in the label’s orbit, you won’t regret diving into the psychonautic voyage that is Mind Body Complexing.
Mind Body Complexing is available on Schematic Music Company. [Bandcamp]
