Shrill and chilling the EP gives voice to the cold-blooded sounds of machines.
DMX Krew has always had a healthy release rate, but at the moment his vinyl flow is turning to a deluge. After recent output on Mystic and Quantum alongside an album on Shipwrec, 2014 is proving to be a fruitful year for the Electro pioneer. Adding to those two albums comes EDMX’s first 12” of the year, a return to Central Processing Unit for A New Life.
The Summer rays to pierce Winter skies in Britain (they did so quite a while ago here in Spain), but Ed Upton is in cold and clinical form. Electrical currents course, 808 percussion slicing through 101 rumblings for the frozen “Space Eyes.” The EP has a tough, almost inhuman, mechanical tone to it, stark and stripped sounds removing man from the equation. This is not heavy hitting, high BPM stuff, but thoughtful, slow and considered. Chords bulge, bars inhaling for “Spook Show.” But distance is maintained, Upton keeping the listener at arms length amidst the more inviting bends of “Shared Library.” The thaw finally comes with the close. Rich and fragile keys melt for the delicate “Give Me A House.”
Electro has a spectrum of warmth. With Cities in Flight DMX Krew showed the more autumnal side of the genre. A New Life occupies the polar end of this scale. Shrill and chilling the EP gives voice to the cold-blooded sounds of machines. Beams of late Spring light arrive with “Give Me A House,” but this deserved heat does little to melt those chilblain streaked chords. Frost-bitten electronics from an unseasonably warm Britain.
A New Life is available on Central Processing Unit.
