Knock Netflix on the head for a bit and cosy up beside an artist who will leave your body battered, your eardrums rinsed and your girlfriend unhappy with the hour you have arrived home at. In other words, enjoy some proper late night debauchery and leave the big names to complain about their hotel room. This is straight up, “smack ya in the face, steal your wallet and leave a glob of spit on ya for good luck” techno.
It’s a strange time for electronic music. We have never had so much access to music, never had such a range of platforms from which we can listen to every sound under the sun. However, the democratisation of music has, as many of you will know, been the death of a many a label. It is more difficult than ever to stay afloat in a sea of ever growing imprints, to steer a course through the choppy waters of pressing plant delays and website hosting fees. Listeners struggle to stay afloat, never mind informed, and hang on to the welcome life jacket of well known names. Instead of exploring the depths it is the surface that people cling to. Tutamen fears not what lies below.
Developed from a cassette outfit, Tutamen branched into 12” territory with some headline grabbing names like Drvg Cvlture, L/F/D/M and Piotr Cisak. The latest from the Bristol based brigade is from an artist whose name might not jump off the inners but who is quite prolific. Ersatz Olfolks is a musician with a dizzying number of pseudonyms and under this particular nom de plume he has graced the likes of Diffuse Reality and most recently Transcendent with his particular brand of machined goods. His new EP is a good introduction to a name worth keeping an ear on.
Boundaries. Easy listening it ain’t. The name of the game is techno, techno in such a rusted style that you might need a tetnus shot soon after the needle drop. Gnarled and metallic, the title track spits greased venom from piston joints. Hammer is laid over pound and thump as a blunt monologue of corrosive curses and serrating swears rips through speakers. Vlaysin, of Inertie and VOITAX fame, keeps the furnaces burning with a similarly bludgeoning work. Beats are pummelled until they are left sagging and soaked, sweat by now dripping from aching and hoarse drum machines that attempt they limp to the flip. They might as well keep limping as there is no respite in sight. “12 O Clock” maintains the 4×4 battery. Steel screams as ball bears crunch in this hypnotic bruising late night assault. Arguably the lightest of the quarter is “Book Of Thoth.” Still as dark and soot and twice as industrial the closer shows another shade to Ersatz Olfolks. The grunt and groan of gears, the moan of the mechanism, are still present but behind the doors of the abandoned warehouse lurks something else and something none to friendly.
Ersatz Olfolks isn’t reinventing the wheel with Boundaries. This is straight up, “smack ya in the face, steal your wallet and leave a glob of spit on ya for good luck” techno. Bang. Wallop. Good morning. While there are a number of big name artists producing a similar style, this 12” adds more in the way of both ferocity and flare. There is the other issue. Big names are big names. They don’t need the same attention, the same support, as up and coming artists. Boundaries is a perfect example of a 12” that will tick many boxes for listeners but might not get those listeners in the first place. My advice. Switch off that Berghain representative. Knock Netflix on the head for a bit and cosy up beside an artist who will leave your body battered, your eardrums rinsed and your girlfriend unhappy with the hour you have arrived home at. In other words, enjoy some proper late night debauchery and leave the big names to complain about their hotel room.
Boundaries is available on Tutamen.
