In rotation for the past several weeks/months, this multi-view reveals the latest sonic landscape from 11 talented musicians. Plenty of brittle, glitch, abstract, noisy, mechanical and bass-infused sounds with releases/tracks by Veronica Green, Hatch, Dave Flint, Errorbeauty & Serge Geyzel, Annie Hall, Datacrashrobot, Max Maxell, V-Stók, Weldroid & Room Of Wires.
V/A :: Alien Transmissions Vol 1 (Pyramid Transmissions)
Four tracks of utter creativity, Veronica Green, Hatch, Dave Flint, and Errorbeauty & Serge Geyzel inhabit a new world, vast landscapes filled with jagged stones, broken cliffside edges, and a soundtrack of 90s Artificial Intelligence-era IDM merged succinctly with rugged electro. Veronica Green’s “Deeper”—perhaps one of my favorite tracks of 2020 thus far—gravitates towards emotion laden glitch, acid, and robust beats. Dave Flint’s “Nectar” slithers across via mechanical acid swirls and more direct, in your face, electro-techno grappling, the underlying tone is chilled to the touch. “Between Colours” by Errorbeauty & Serge Geyzel busts open with heavy breaks and rumbling bass, its core made of emotive rhythmic tones as it grabs at the heartstrings. “Depresse Mode”—get it?—by Hatch, reveals the artists’ knack for elevated acidic flurries submerged in ultra low-end and surreal atmospheric pressure. Alien Transmissions Vol 1 is the quintessential 2020 electro opener for the imprints’ newest compilation series, and I imagine it’ll be difficult to top this one.
Annie Hall :: Fum EP (Central Processing Unit)
Annie Hall returns to CPU and I’m immediately drifting into early Detroit techno inspired synthesizer rhythms with “Verd Mar,” a sweet, low thumping foray into nostalgic times. And this is where these four tracks take us. Yes, there are dense breaks, beats, and distortion on tracks like “D’un Altre Planets,” yet it somehow evens out with melodic layering and exquisite electronics. Elsewhere we are taken back once again to early Detroit days with the encapsulating “Promeses De Fusta,” a trip through tranquil bass and floating blips and bleeps. The title track exhibits a dense assortment of ambient notes intertwined with robust beats and Orbital-infused voices that seem to cascade in the background (one can almost sense Kirsty Hawkshaw’s voice). A well choreographed EP that dips and dives through brisk electro-techno fields of light and fading shadows far off in the distance. Available late March, 2020.
Datacrashrobot :: Dynamic Dispatch Mechanism EP (Roulette Rekordz)
Our favorite Romanian electro mangler returns to his Datacrashrobot moniker roots with crisped claps and bouncing bass beats for Dynamic Dispatch Mechanism—a four track extended player covering plenty of ground. From the gritty acid drenched contusions of the title track to the dark, rugged, and bass infested “Syntonic Transmitter,” there’s an obvious nod to the past—crunchy breaks and, dare we say, robotic rhythms, surround these tracks. “Parity Function” dips into early Model 500 slabs bringing classic Detroit sounds to the forefront and stands out as the finest track of the lot. A solid venture, and one that doesn’t really break new ground, nor does it have to. Oh, also—don’t let the “Gantz Graf” styled cover art distract you either, this EP traverses intense and energetic frequency bursts tethered to low end acid plumes and is not the explosive experimental electronic collision that “Gantz Graf” was.
Max Maxell :: Normal Bias (Self-Released)
I was turned on to this 31-track release (a collaboration between Karsten Pflum and Michael Shiøler Tingsgård) by Karsten himself, a 3-hr trip into dense, electro-tinged, and technically beautiful tracks that deserve much more attention—just listen to the delicate blips’n bleeps of “Maxenity” to get a feel for Max Maxell’s moody rhythms and floating Detroit-inspired groove. The album takes a few sharp u-turns as evidenced on tracks like “Tibet” and “Tokonoma” where old-school techno merges with brisk, bubbly breaks that sound like they were culled from Transmat archives. As the multi-talented Danish musicians cast a quirkier light on these tracks which were recorded straight to cassette apparently, Normal Bias really should have seen a tape release, or a double tape considering its length. “MacLoud”—one of my favorite pieces of the lot (next to “Mydaymyday”)—takes a downtempo trajectory. Its meandering melodies circle muddied bass and gritty claps that eventually fade away almost as if we have run out of tape. “Demoon” is an acrobatic and blissful track that reminds me of classic-era Lowfish with its stark robotic electro rhythm that smolders and breaks apart at the seams. As I usually play this album on random, I’m continuously baffled by the depth and focus of each track, “fWall” exhibits dark slithering notes that are also vibrant and quite colorful—a signature characteristic you’ll find throughout this album. Even with the tape hiss buried deep in the mix, Normal Bias is an outstanding release of bubbling IDM, electro, breaks, bass, and techno structures that simply doesn’t let down.
V-Stók :: Aquatic Rituals (Amek Collective)
An aptly-titled album composed of ten turbulent pieces—distortion-filled ambient noises, broken synthesizers, and an array of extraterrestrial debris washes over the listener in these 60 or so minutes of harsh sound scrapings. V-Stók (aka Bulgarian-born, Bristol-based Valentin Doychinov, and “mental experimental sound explorer and instrumentalist“) displays a slew of digital signal processing and disjointed glitch elements that blend together and feed off each other like some kind of primordial being. Textural segments of curious and disturbing sounds slip into the abyss, another dimension that is at once scary, brooding, and often left for interpretation. V-stók aims for the deepest instabilities of ambient music while maintaining a place so cold and remote, one can’t quite pin our own coordinates in this thick electronic mist. Synthesized extracts from another planet, here we have the makings of a surreal dark-ambient epic that ebbs and flows through thousands of erratic fissures creating nothing more than a fleeting foray into the unknown. These “sound metaphors” are as viceral as can be, blending its aquatic theme with outstanding effects.
Weldroid & Room Of Wires :: The Deep Blue Knight EP (Section 27)
A collaboration featuring five tracks sewn together by threads of glitch, brokenbeat, downtempo, and IDM fragments—The Deep Blue Knight elevates itself through melodic and tranquil fields. The depth of vision with this union is utterly absorbing, bringing with it a nostalgic flare for emotive electronics (ref. “Stupor” and “Farmag”)—where elements of classic Kattoo-styled dark notes blend with an organic/classical mood shift. Elsewhere industrial swaths of debris ricochet from glass walls—simply have a listen to “Mumindalen Abandon.” The highlight takes shape on “Forest Deep Walk Blue Knight” as it eradicates preconceived notions of IDM for a sweet, pseudo-shoegaze trip through melodic guitar strings, rugged drums, and corroded voices buried somewhere in the middle where fans of older Gridlock will find solace. An EP of isolated rhythms, blurred memories, and contemplative shifts through time. Contagious and curious in its construct, “Concussed Viking” lays it all out on the line—a dizzying array of broken and blissful ambient contusions. Ultimately, The Deep Blue Knight proves to be an enlightened EP that doesn’t disappoint.
