This is music for detailed home listening, but also would be a joy to take in at a live show in a small club or larger festival stage. We miss you Maschinenfest!
Variety, depth, and dynamics—teasing us with really strong sounds
If I had to sum up this release in three words they would be: Variety, depth, and dynamics. Hymen Records always deliver some of the most interesting music and this release is no exception. Defrag (aka Jeff Dodson) have been releasing albums for 20 or more years; earlier under the name Defragmentation but shortening it to Defrag around 2009. If you have read my reviews in the past you will know that I am partial to the twin musical worlds of IDM and industrial, and where they meet—especially on labels like Hymen Records and Ant-Zen Records.
Following on from the last album released Drown from 2014 (Hymen), Float seems to show more of the other side of the twin personas between Drown and Float. Drown lent more towards industrial, harsher noise, and glitch beat affair, whilst Float feels more chilled, perhaps more matured, and more positive than the sentiments of Drown, but still retains that Defrag edge, and strong production and arrangements. The mini-album Idle Lines from 2021 on the Kaer’Uiks label is well worth checking out too, but Float is more my thing.
Trying to put a simplistic description on this album is difficult as it traverses a rich array of sounds and feelings. There are some more IDM paced percussion tracks, some more live/dance-floor friendly ones where you would be unable to not move to, and some electro work outs that any electro head producer would be proud of.
“Surface Kracken” harks back to the glitchy and processed sounds on Drown, definitely a track for great big speakers, it would be amazing live on a huge system. The bass would feel very much alive. There are vocal elements in some tracks which is not usually my thing, but they work really well here and are more spoken word than singing. Think more along the lines of Haujobb perhaps for comparison sake. Strong bass lines and dynamics are in plentiful supply here. Executing and projecting the music into the spaces beyond IDM.
“Fire and Stone” has some nice retro sounds and feel like a nod to some past musical loves whilst remaining true to the essence of the Float album, and the Defrag sound. Nice arpeggiated synths blend with very 80’s/90’s influenced cold wave sounds, but the processed stabs keep everything totally current at the same time. Nice vocal elements make this track shine, words I rarely use when it comes to electronic music.
“Square” is a fantastic work out to what alternative electro sounds like. Almost in the electro punk ethic the track delivers everything intended in just over four minutes. This shows another side to the Defrag sound style, and delivers something epically dance-able as well as having blissful synth and drum moments with filtered rhythms which remind one of classic Aphex Twin percussion.
This is a very strong album ::
Defrag like to play with our speakers, teasing us with really strong sounds, right up in the front of the mix that make for the details, but behind there is usually a quite moveable beat. This is music for detailed home listening, but also would be a joy to take in at a live show in a small club or larger festival stage. We miss you Maschinenfest!
The title track is the shortest on the album. A true statement-piece. Like the clarion call to the muses that delivered the inspirations for the rest of the album. It has that short-lived yet crescendo thing going on. Then we are only left with the finale, outro track “Atlas.” This track is the epilogue, that summation of the parts from before, the map to the next journey, the globe that swells with the water on which we float—we all float up here! Mostly “Atlas” leaves in awe of what we just heard, wanting to hear it again, and wondering what do we need to do to get Defrag to deliver us these albums more often. We’ll let “Glass Ship” speak for itself, see YouTube official music video below.
Thankfully this is a physical vinyl release and it really deserves to be one too. Still available directly from the Hymen/Ant-Zen online web-stores, including their Bandcamp and Discogs too. If you like this and want to have it physically then do not sit on it too long as word gets around, and Hymen & Ant-Zen releases tend to be more and more limited and selling out very fast!
This is a very strong album. Highly recommended for fans of Ant-Zen, Hymen, Tympanik Audio, Hands, n5MD and Kaer’Uiks labels.
Float is available on Hymen. [Bandcamp]
