Deru :: rhythm tapes (Pushing Air Productions)

After years exploring ambient stillness and shadowy textures, Deru—aka Benjamin Wynn—returns with rhythm tapes, a raw, genre-blurring mixtape of ten glitchy, percussive tracks. Fusing early IDM spirit with modern grit, it’s a rhythmic reinvention where chaos and control collide. A new chapter, sharper and louder.

Pushing air (and beats) again

 

After years immersed in “crumbling cinematic atmospheres” and “ambient sculptures” etched in tone and shadow, the ever-evolving, genre-bending sound architect Deru reemerges with rhythm tapes—a stunning cycle of ten crunchy, polymorphic tracks that embrace the tangled heartbeat of IDM and skewed, off-kilter rhythms. Shaped as a continuous mixtape, Benjamin Wynn’s latest work navigates warped time signatures, hazy tonal swells, and intensely saturated percussive fragments that seem to collapse and reconstruct in endless motion.

Here, glitch and groove intertwine. Hip-hop-tinged layers entangle with skittering patterns, each track peeling into the next like refracted echoes of an earlier phrase—looping, mutating, regenerating. These abstract, cerebral landscapes feel both chaotic and strangely coherent, where Wynn manages to draw order from disarray.

“Seeds” sets the tone with a suffocating intensity—detuned drones hum beneath snarled distortion while analog synths spark like frayed wires touching. “WHKP” shifts into a more contorted cadence, pulsing with uneven momentum and crushed textures. Gone is the ambient propulsion of previous works; rhythm tapes embraces every stammer, smear, and sonic knot.

A tapestry of analog crackle ::

On “Denon,” pixelated blips dance with fractured vocals and vintage glitch-hop jolts, while “Gemini” dips into a space reminiscent of Lusine ICL, Loess, and Shuttle358—delicate threads of noise enveloped by crisp percussive detailing. The final tracks, “2(e)c” and “type ii,” spiral further into erratic meter and granular detritus, revealing a tapestry of analog crackle, digital splinters, and rhythmic dissonance.

This collection doesn’t just suggest a return—it declares it. Wynn circles back to early influences, to the unsettling, beat-driven explorations of the early 2000s, now reinterpreted through years of sonic evolution. rhythm tapes feels like a welcome homecoming—not just for the artist, but for anyone still chasing the ghost of glitch. And if this is the first dispatch in a continuing series, we’re already anticipating where the next iteration might lead—eager for more beautifully broken transmissions from Deru’s ever-shifting audio collage.

In the liner notes, Deru evokes the phrase “Back to rhythm” not only as a thematic undercurrent but as a nostalgic gesture—like a stack of fading Polaroids capturing fleeting moments as the cover art depicts. It crystallizes the journey from the Midwest to the West Coast, giving that migration a definitive audible form—each track shaped by memory, movement, and the rhythm of reinvention. Say hello to useful.

rhythm tapes is available on Pushing Air Productions. [Bandcamp]