An ear-pleasing array of synthetic pads and washes, bleeps and wibbles consort with sprightly beats and kinetic bass motifs, the production finely tooled for clarity and depth.
[Release page] German producer Audiokonstrukte offers a finely judged blend of spacious urban electro-dub and downtempo electronica on this his first album City Echoes on Mille Plateaux-related Vertical.fm offshoot, Fürni. This hitherto unsung Herr hymns the urban with coolly atmospheric beat-driven assemblages for the intelligent downtempo listener, bringing together jazz-tinged and electro-allusive touches, ambient mannah and dub manners.
One might be tempted to tag it with the C-word, but to call it ‘Chillout‘ would not only be a lazy shorthand, but would risk consigning it to anodyne head nod hell when it merits more serious attention. The Audiokonstrukte sound is not so prefabricated as the likes of a Zero 7 or a Thievery Corporation, or as predigested as the Cafe Del Mar and Buddha Bar types (though the references around to Röyksopp and Boards Of Canada are wide of the mark). In fact City Echoes is suggestive enough to prompt your reviewer toward the unveiling of a new sub-genre hybrid tag: psyIDMbientdub (sure, it’ll catch on – give it a go!). An ear-pleasing array of synthetic pads and washes, bleeps and wibbles consort with sprightly beats and kinetic bass motifs, the production finely tooled for clarity and depth. Dub-inflections stay gratifyingly clear of both second-hand stepping, cod-reggae, and blank digi-skank. This Audiokonstrukte, some kind of Nu-eclectic Euro-jackdaw, one minute picks up parts from the UK IDM bodyshop, extracting some of the essence of its minor-key moods and Warp-ed textures, the next draws discreetly from a legacy of German motor-minimalism. His city echoes with remote transmissions from Kraftwerk through Basic Channel to the ghosts of Pole and passages of early Monolake-side ambient techno. The blend is not entirely ground-breaking – tracks like “Dusty Atmosphere” and “Slow the Moment,” for example, have the flavour of something from boutique ambi-dub/psy-bient French label, Ultimae, but City Echoes turns out to be a satisfying enough set of audio blueprints, well designed to soundtrack the desk-bound headphone-commuter or dusk-bound city flaneur from penthouse to pavement.
City Echoes is out now on Fürni. [Release page]
